Marie Kinnaman Designs: Baby Shower - Part Two

The Theme was Sugar & Spice . . .

The Colors and Textures were black & white with burlap & lace . . . and touches of lime and turquoise.

Most of the food was stuffed. The flowers included the Calla Lily, Baby's Breath, and lots of fresh cut herbs. For party favors we made lavender sachets, representing the "spice" and tins of sugar & cinnamon, representing the "sugar."

Games were all created for guests to play on their own time - so there was no need to stop conversation to play along. Our party "activity" was to dress a paper doll and sign the back for the nursery.

Handcrafted parties of any kind take time if you plan on making things yourself - so I was happy to have months to prepare. I began by collecting items to craft with.

Collections included lace doilies, baby baskets,
burlap and old clothespins

I tea stained some of the doilies that were too
white in a strong brew for several hours

The "statement" piece was a clothes line hung high above the table with baby clothes. Most of theses clothes were thrifted or purchased at resale shops. After washing, the grandma-to-be and I embellished the pieces that needed some excitement with lace, crocheted flowers, and buttons. And yes, the guest-of-honor keeps all of these darling clothes!

Embellished baby clothing for our statement piece

The clothes lines (Paz Kinnaman Photography)

Burlap was used to make two buntings with the shower theme and the baby's name. I have always called these "flags" but the proper name is bunting. Who knew? I sewed the burlap triangles onto a strip of ribbon and then added lace detail to give it a feminine touch. On Lily's bunting I also added narrow ribbon with beads on the ends, in-between the letters.

Bunting hanging above the drink and dessert bars (Paz Kinnaman Photography)

I made a pattern in cardboard, cut out the flags for the bunting in burlap,
and stitched the edges first then stenciled the letters

This is not a great photo to show the beautiful bunting made from doilies.
I cut doilies in half and sewed them in-between folded translucent ribbon.
We hung it above the kitchen counter and it was very visible in the entire scheme of things
. . . used 3-M removable tabs for hanging.

A long table runner, made from burlap and doilies, was created to run the entire length of the three folding tables. We used lace tablecloths, vintage napkins and bamboo flatware and plates for an interesting juxtaposition of materials

Made these blocks with adhesive lettering and plain blocks found in a craft store,
then hot-glued them together. Didn't use the stenciling items.

I found these paper doll cutouts in the craft store and they were so affordable, it was a must to think of something to do with them. Decided to dress them up and hang from a little clothes line with very small clothes pins (also found at the craft store.) In an effort to make them more "baby" like I cut off the little girls hair for a round face-shape. I made a cardboard pattern to use to make patterns on graph paper of clothing items, then cut out the pieces from scrapbook paper and glued onto the paper dolls - then embellished each.

Here they are hanging on the wall under the real clothes line! (Paz Kinnaman Photography)

We loved how the paper dolls turned out so we purchased more for the guests to dress for the nursery. In the early stages of planing the shower the nursery color scheme was not decided, but by shower time we knew, and used the colors so they would work in Lily's room.

These are the paper dolls guests dressed for Lily's room

We had an entire table dedicated to dressing paper dolls with our cutouts

The Calla Lily was held in place with a metal stand
and the stem was sitting in a shot glass of water

The main florals on the table (three arrangements on one long table) included one Calla Lily with three small vases of other white flowers and herbs. The three small vases were each wrapped in either burlap, lace, or doilies. In other areas, baby baskets held small groupings of flowers and herbs.

Party Favors (Lavender Sachets and Cinnamon & Sugar Tins) were set at each place setting and a basket of extras was available for guests to take a few more.

The paper roll with pearl bracelet and pencil was the game sheet and placed at each setting

The game sheet had spaces for answers and the "word of the day" (which was Lily) along with their bracelet. The guest who had the most bracelets at the end of the party won a prize.

A baby bath tub held little rubber duckies (from Party City) and water balloons -
The game was to guess how many of both combined were in the tub (without touching)