Whale Themed Baby Shower

Blogging? What on earth is that??

Oh, riiiiiiight, it’s this side gig I’ve been seriously neglecting lately.  Eeek!  I hope you’ll forgive me, gang, because I have a fun post to share with you today.  Yahoo!  Actually, I have several fun posts that I need to catch up on, but I figure this one is a good place to start.

This past weekend, I hosted a whale themed baby shower at my home for my sister-in-law Amanda.  While I admit it came together fairly well at the last minute, it was a bit of a scramble.

Thankfully, I had put together an inspiration board a couple of months back to give me some ideas, but, ultimately, I just ended up doing my own thing or at least putting my own spin on it.

Case in point, I came across this idea somewhere on the gigantic world wide web (and now I can’t find the source for it.  Sorry!  If this is your image, leave a comment and link and I will credit appropriately!)….

Anyhoo, to put my own spin on this idea of whales tails, I used some fun paper from Paper Source (I am addicted to Paper Source, btw.  I typically make this admission on a need-to-know basis only, but I’m feeling extra vulnerable today.), glued the paper to hard card stock to make the tails firm.  Then, I simply hot glued the tails to long skewer sticks to stand in the baby’s breath bouquets.

I was really happy with the way turned out!  What do you think?

As far as the flowers go, well, I had planned on buying blue hydrangeas, but the store was all out of them, so baby’s breath it is.  It wasn’t much of a concession, though, because I really do love the look of the baby’s breath.

In other random items that I threw on the table, was a picnic basket that I just had to have last year (thank you, Marshalls) that I have only used once before and that time was for my anniversary picnic in the porch last year.  Clearly, it was due for another appearance.  You can also see that I reused my red and white checkered fabric from the picnic for this shower as well.

It’s so easy to spend lots of money throwing showers and parties, but I really like to save money and get as much mileage out of the items I already have on hand whenever possible.  What are ways you’ve re-purposed old party decor?

 

Admittedly, these yogurt parfaits were one of my favorite elements to tie in to the party.  I bought this neat rack with small glasses at an estate sale I stumbled upon on my way home from work last year.  For $7, I took this baby home…where it’s sat for an entire year waiting for the perfect opportunity to be put to good use.

FINALLY, that day came. *Sigh*

It is a pretty darling set-up, wouldn’t you agree?  I added a little ribbon to dress it up a pinch.

Next up are these little whales that I drew and cut out by hand.  The “Oh Boy!” font is computer printed; however, I did hand draw the black outline and details of the mini banners (a detail I may skip the next time I crunched for time!).

If you’ve been a follower of Lovely Scribbles for some time now, you will know that place cards are a must for all of my parties.  I had traced what felt like a million whales, but I’m telling you, gang, cutting those little guys out of that hard, thick, glittery card stock is not for the faint of heart.

I’m allowing myself a good two weeks of hand therapy to recover.  I’m kidding, of course, but that paper is tough stuff to cut by hand!

Excuse the poor lighting here, but the photo below was a mid-prep shot before the food was added, but as you can see, I kept things fairly simple with just a few details here and there.  I borrowed the pretty glass water dispenser from my sister-in-law Jenna, and it added a really nice touch to the whole set-up.

Check out this pretty fruit salad, courtesy of my sister-in-law Kate.  On a side note, have I mentioned that I have a lot of sister-in-laws?  Six to be exact, soon to be seven!

Pssst….I misspelled “cheesy” on one of the place cards.  Awesome.  I realized it as soon as I did it, but, alas, time was not on my side, so I just went with it. Sometimes I feel like I’m a one-woman-circus.  Naturally, this is one of those times.

Soooo, the invites…

Well, my initial design is what you see below on the left, which I ended up using as part of the decor.  What I ended up sending out in the mail is what you see on the right.  Lame, I know.

I’m telling you, July just kicked. my. butt. in a good but very BUSY kind of a way.  Being a perfectionist, I have never allowed myself to simplify a project like these invitations for the sake of time, but time was just not on my side this past week, and all-in-all, they still looked pretty good simplified, so I had to compromise with myself this time around.

Thanks for stopping by, friends, and have a blessed day!