Lynsie's Shower!

I had the pleasure of hosting a baby shower for my good friend Lynsie. She and Brandon are expecting their first baby, a little boy, on June 17th and Saturday May 3rd was the big day I have been planning to help welcome him in style. From the beginning I chose a bird theme with the brown and blue color combo..with some hints of green too. When I pick a theme, I am religious about sticking to it and finding everything and anything I can that fits the theme and color combo. My favorite part of any party is the small, sometimes overlooked, details. It is the funnest part to me.


I started out with the invitations. I found them on a site and decided to make them myself since I love making invitations. Papersource was my friend, I got everything I needed there and probably more than I needed :)

I added magnets to the invitations so that people could put them on their fridge to not forget and funny enough, Lynsie never got her invitation that I mailed. Friday night when she and Brandon were leaving their house to head up to her mom's, they checked the mail. Brandon opened the box and there was no mail, but he thought he saw something on the side of the box so he grabbed it, and sure enough, it was the invitation I had sent weeks ago. The magnet had stuck to their mailbox and since it was a brown envelope they never saw it. I thought that was pretty funny :)





For the decorations, I used paper lanterns since that seems to be the popular thing right now for parties/weddings. I have seen so many inspiration boards with pictures of them and I just love the look. I spray painted 2 of them a light blue and left the others white and Melinda hung 3 above each of our tables. I think they looked amazing, It just made me so happy to see them there. Since our theme was birds, I looked for everything bird related. I ordered mini nests online for the favors and I also used a few for tea light holders. Melinda has quite the collection of birds and birdhouses so we incorporated those all over and as part of our table scape.

For the favors I went to a candy shop in the University District, The Confectionery, which I talked about here and got some blue and brown taffy. The blue, which was cotton candy flavored, was definitely the hit. Lynsie loved it! I filled the nests with the taffy and then put them in cellophane bags and tied them with brown/white bakers string. Then I got round blue circles and stamped "Thank you" on them with a cute little bird.




Ben Franklin must have known I was doing this shower, and so they sold these cute little bird houses for only $1.00 each!! I was so excited when I walked in and saw them. Melinda loves to paint so I knew that would be right up her alley, and I bought 22 of them. She did a few every night until she was done and I think she had a lot of fun coming up with cute ways to paint and decorate them. We displayed them on our tables and all over the room in different spots and then when the shower was over I told everyone to pick one to take home. Everyone was excited to pick one, and we let Lynsie take 2 :)



For the food, I decided to do a salad buffet. We did: taco salad, macaroni salad, fresh fruit salad, pea salad, Chinese chicken salad, spinach dip and then chicken salad in pita's. Everyone loved the huge selection and I think Melinda's macaroni salad and fresh fruit salads were the favorites, they were both delicious.



For the drinks, I wanted to come up with something creative and fun. I'm not really a fan of punch, I think it's messy, and let's face it..I didn't have a punch bowl haha. On my way to work one day, I passed an espresso stand and an idea popped in my head. I thought of having an Italian Soda bar. I was so excited and I was definitely set on doing it. I went to Cash & Carry and got the real Italian soda cups with the dome lids and I got raspberry, blueberry and root beer flavors. Everyone loved them and most people took one to go too. Shelby works at a Coffee stand so she made them for everyone, complete with some whipped cream on top. I also had a little blue tub filled with mini waters and mini soda's.




The Dessert table was filled with chocolate covered strawberry's that Breanne made. I had bought strawberry's from Costco for Melinda's fruit salad and we had a bunch left over. It was a last minute decision but definitely a hit. I made the Smore's Cupcakes from Trophy Cupcakes. They were quite the process to make, but definitely worth it. They were delicious and several people asked for the recipe.






For games, we played the dirty diaper game where Shelby melted some candy in diapers and people had to smell them and guess which one was which candy bar. I can't believe how realistic it looked and it was hilarious to see the looks on people's faces as they were opening the diapers. Definitely a great game to play, and Grandma Annie was the winner.



The other activity was "Name Baby Riehl" since Brandon & Lynsie still haven't come up with a name. I made cards with A-Z on them and told everyone to come up with as many names as possible and the cards were going straight to Brandon since he is the one having the difficulty :) It was fun and got everyone talking. I think we came up with some pretty cool names. After that, I passed out little cards to everyone that I am going to include in the scrapbook to give to Lynsie. Everyone was to write when they think the little one will be born, how much he will weigh and how long he will be and then also they could include a quote or anything really. My favorite one was by Lynsie's Grandma Annie, her card simply said "I hope you have a name by the time your one. Love Grandma Annie" :) I read through the cards last night and laughed out loud at that one! So true too :)







Overall the shower was a huge hit. Everyone really enjoyed themselves and Lynsie got so many nice things. Her and Brandon are so very excited to be having a little boy and I can't wait to see their life with their new little one, even though he is still nameless :)

I had so much fun working on this, it really is fun to have an event like this, especially when the occasion is to welcome a new baby. Baby Riehl will definitely be one loved little boy!