Baby shower!

I hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law a couple of weeks ago and we had a grand time decorating onesies, eating sweets, and opening presents! Well, just Kelly on that last one. :)

One of the girls made these sweet pinwheels out of scrapbook paper (tutorial here), which we taped to the wall but you could also hang. She also made a paper garland out of scrapbook paper, which we hung across our main window. She said the pinwheels required a bit of effort but the paper garland was quite easy--I love how all of it turned out!

The pinwheels turned out so pro.

You can see the garland in the background, but we all know who the
real star of the picture is! And yes, the drinks were non-alcoholic. :)

We also had a station where guests could decorate a onesie for baby Parker. Megan (also pictured above) brought adorable iron-on appliques -- little bow ties, regular ties, animals -- and sandpaper and crayons. You may be asking, what's with the sandpaper and the crayons? Megan discovered on Pinterest that if you drew a design onto the gritty side of sandpaper with crayons, then flipped over the design onto the fabric and ironed over it, the design would transfer to the fabric! Really, it was just like magic. And SO easy.

See the owl and the sailboat? That's what you can do with the sandpaper
and the crayons. And that giraffe is just ADORABLE.

Some more iron-ons: bow-ties are always winners!

And lastly, our food spread:

Click the photo to enlarge it, those cake pops are seriously professional!
And the cupcakes look like owls but you might not be able to tell from
this distance; I forgot to get a close-up.

Megan did the cake pops and the cupcakes, Tina did the crackers and cheese platter, and I did the fruit skewers. Fruit skewers are one of my favorite party foods to make: they are healthy, require little prep, and look so pretty! I used strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, and grapes. I bought the pineapple and cantaloupe already diced, eliminating some prep work, but still had to halve each chunk and also cut the strawberries. It does take some time to skewer them all so you'll want to allow yourself about a minute per skewer. Sometimes I went faster than that but at times the fruit would break off the skewer or a grape would look a little funky and need to be replaced.

What I would do differently:

1. Organize the schedule better. Normally I'm pretty good at planning events down to the minute but what with the last-minute prep work and cleaning, I somehow completely spaced that part. Scheduling was necessary here since we had mingling time in the beginning, a game, a time for opening presents, and the decorating of the onesies.

2. Flowers! In my defense, I looked for an arrangement at Safeway the day of the party but they just didn't have anything I liked that was remotely reasonable. But never underestimate the effect of a fresh bouquet! Next time: a quick run to Pike Place.

3. Move the onesies station from the guest room into the living room. We did actually end up doing this near the last hour of the party because no one would separate themselves from the rest of the group to go to the guest room. I did have a reason for keeping the ironing separate in the first place, though: a child was originally going to be present at the shower and I wasn't sure if I wanted the hot iron in the main area where she might be running around. But she and her mom weren't able to make it so that risk was averted. I still don't know if I would've moved it if she were present, though. Anyone have advice on that?