Carley's Colorful Book Themed Baby Shower

This last weekend we celebrated my sister-in-law and baby Raelynn with this colorful book themed baby shower. Carley loves to read, and this is their first baby so a book theme seemed perfect. The colors that Carley chose for the nursery are very fun and colorful, so we were able to incorporate those with the shower as well. You can find more details about the shower below.

Diaper cake tutorial HERE.
Free chalkboard reading quote print HERE.

Free Jane Austen reading print HERE.

Felt balls were purchased on Etsy from Hand Made Only.

I then strung the 2cm sized balls onto twine using a large needle.

Fresh gerber daisy flowers were placed in jars on each table. We found gently used children's books at thrift stores to use as centerpieces. 

We used baby links as napkin rings, that were then gifted to the Mommy-to-be. 

B. Hug Links

The napkins and table runners were made with very fun fabrics. Simply cut to squares and large strips and the edges sewn with a serger. 3 yards made 3 table runners and 2 yards made about 24 napkins with some extra scraps leftover.

Fabric from Fabric Bubb. 

Make your own tissue poms to add some color to the shower!

Tutorial HERE.

Yogurt Parfaits served with fresh fruit and granola.

If you look closely there is a tiny baby frozen in that ice cube. Fun baby shower game... Freeze tiny babies (found at craft store) in ice cubes. Give each guest one as they arrive. The first guest that gets their baby out of the ice cube must yell "My water broke!" and wins the game. 

As prizes for the winners of each game we gave them each one of the Mommy-to-be's favorite books.

Each book was also wrapped with a colorful headband made of jersey knit fabric. Tutorial for headband HERE.

We served Chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate covered bacon as dessert for a morning brunch style shower.

We used striped paper straws, twine, and washi tape to make the pendant banner with baby Raelynn's name on it. 

We also used fun colored washi tape to create quick and easy straw flags that were labeled with each guest's name.

We put Rochelle to work doing all the writing! She has beautiful penmanship and we had her address all the invitations,  write on drink flags, food labels, and anything else that required pretty writing!

As guests arrived we took their picture with the Mommy-to-be to place in a photo album for her to remember the special day. 

Served orange juice, mimosas, and cucumber mint water.

Fabric garland using a variety of colors and prints looks so cute! Carley will also be using it as a decoration in baby Raelynn's nursery.  

Served several kinds of quiche and breakfasts braids.

Presented Carley with a letter written to her and baby Raelynn from Matt (Daddy-to-be). 

As party favors for each guest as they left we made bookmarks with a reading quote by Jane Austen, along with a tea bag.

Download the free bookmark files in different colors HERE and HERE.

It was a very special morning with lots of love for Carley and Baby Raelynn!

  

Diaper Cake Tutorial

Today we celebrated My Sister-in-law and baby Raelynn! I can't wait to meet that sweet baby girl and so excited that Piper and her will grow up close in age. I had a lot of fun making this diaper cake for the shower. Can't wait to share more pictures of the shower. It was a book themed shower with lots of fun bright colors. We modeled the colors of the shower after Raelynn's Nursery. You can find a tutorial below on how to make the diaper cake.

You will need:

-Size 1 diapers (i used 78 for the 3 tiered cake)
-twine or ribbon
-cake pans or pots in 3 sizes

To Decorate:
-3 Burp bloths
-Baby headband
-Felt balls (about 50)
-Twine
-Wooden letter
-Yarn

Step 1: Create a line of diapers all going the same direction and evenly spaced.

Step 2: Curl the diapers into the first cake pan, adding more if needed so the pan is full.

Step 3: Tie the diapers tight with twine.

Step 4: Carefully remove the diapers from the pan. Slide twine to center of diapers. If using Pampers it will run right along the yellow line on the diapers. Now you will need to slide the diapers to fill in any larger spaces.

Step 5: Once all of the diapers are evenly space you may have a hole in the center. (shown above)

Step 6: Roll up 1-2 diapers and place inside the hole.

Step 7: Your first layer is done! Repeat Steps 1-6 for the next two layers.

Once your layers are done you can stack them, making sure each layer of diapers is going in the same direction.

To Decorate:
Create a topper by rolling three burp cloths and wrapping a headband around all three. I made the burp cloths using cloth diapers and fabric from Fabric Bubb. You can buy felt balls online in all different colors. I ordered mine on Etsy from Handmadeonly and strung them on twine using a larger needle. For the Letter I wrapped grey yarn around a wooden letter that you can find at a craft store. I used a hot glue gun to hold down the yard in certain spots.