Story Book Baby Shower

Husband's cousin Keith and his lovely wife Emiko are expecting their first baby. We never believed Keith would get married — having a child was unthinkable! But, love will make you do strange and sometimes wonderful things, and now a beautiful new soul will enter our world in a few short weeks.

Surprise!

To celebrate and help prepare the new mom and dad, Husband and I hosted a baby shower. Neither one of us has any experience with hosting a shower, but after 4 baby boys, we have lots of experience as guests! This being our first shower, I had to do a bit of research

I hit the 'net pretty hard (I am so loving my iPad) Martha Stewart's site was one of my first reference points, where I learned that we should have a theme.

I sat on that one for a day or two. I didn't want to do a character theme, not knowing which American characters may or may not have gone international (Emiko is Japanese). And I wanted it to be something that would benefit the baby, not just a theme for  theme's sake.

And I have a really tight budget, so home made and casual were the way to go. We tossed around a few ideas and decided on a storybook theme, asking each attendee to bring a book for baby's library. And after that, the ideas just flowed.

I made invitations based off the Pottery Barn Kids storybook invitation. The  Boy and I made paper flowers to hang from the ceiling. We also made little books to hang along a string, as a banner over the doorways. And I pored through the boxes of books in the attic to find just the right ones to place around the room as decorations. Final touch was a few vases of white and yellow flowers, wrapped in blue ribbon.

Paper accordion flowers

Book banner. Each "page" was made from the pages of a real book.

All the food was book themed:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: meatballs

Peter  Rabbit: veggies and spinach dip

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie: cookies

Willy Wonka: brownies

Heidi: assorted cheeses and breads

The Hungry Caterpillar: fruit salad

Creamsicle....yum!

We had cupcakes made at Macklin's. Four dozen, 6 different flavors. I made little toppers representing some of the Boy's favorite books.

The take home favor was home made gingerbread men.

The happy parents-to-be