A great baby shower needs one thing to be complete; great baby shower decorations. No matter what your budget you can make sure that any shower that you are planning has excellent decorations and creates the perfect ambience for your occasion. For those who are on a limited budget, a little creativity and imagination can stretch your dollars and turn inexpensive decorations into a baby shower that will leave everyone full of awe and admiration. Baby shower decorations don’t have to be elaborate, but they do have to have one thing in common, a theme.
The theme of your baby shower will determine the decorations that you use. Before you begin choosing decorations, accessories, or even the cake you will need to choose a theme and make your following choices based upon the theme. For example, if you choose a color theme, then you can easily use those hues to pick appropriate decorations. If your theme is based upon a character, this will also influence your choice of decorations. However, with a little ingenuity, you can create stunning decorations that compliment your theme, are easy on your budget, and add sparkle and pizzazz to your event.
One of the easiest ways to make certain that your decorations blend well and compliment one another is to base them upon the centerpiece. For example, if your theme is nursery rhymes or ducks, you can pick a color or image that is used in your centerpiece and use this as the basis for your decorations. For example, pick colors from the duck, such as the yellows and oranges and bring these colors into your choice of balloons, streamers, and banners. You can then add blue for water and create an entire themed decoration set that is comprised of whatever items you find, as long as they blend and compliment your main theme. Just because your theme is ducks does not mean that you have to go out and buy every rubber duck that you see and tack it to the wall. Pull colors, pictures, even fabric ideas from your theme and you’ll find that your ingenuity will reward you with an original and beautifully decorated baby shower.
If you have selected a theme such as pink for a girl or blue for a boy you can also use this as the basis of your decorations without simply choosing everything in one particular color. Again, a great basis for your theme is your centerpiece. If you have a diaper cake with flower or ribbon embellishments, try using those as the basis for your decorating theme. When the decorations are complete you’ll be amazed how it all pulls together and has a united feel. By choosing materials for inspiration you can pick out balloons that match the hue of the satin ribbon on the cake, or even add matching flowers to the tops of cupcakes and windows. Once you begin to look for themes simply choose to purchase items within your budget that matches and blends with fabrics, colors, and images. You’ll be amazed at how unified the finished look will be.
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If you’re hosting a bridal shower, there are literally hundreds of games to choose from. Some are silly, some are serious, but all are about having some fun with the bride before she’s married. Here’s a sampling.
One fun game really puts the bride on the spot with regard to her knowledge of her husband-to-be’s life. Prior to the party, have someone ask the groom a series of questions, such as where he was born, what his favorite food is, things like that. Then at the bridal shower, put the bride on the spot by asking her the answers to the questions. See how many she can get right (hopefully at least half!). If she does well, give the girl a prize; she deserves one.
One all-time favorite game is toilet paper wedding dresses. This game involves separating the guests into teams consisting of at least 2 people and no more than 5. Give each team a roll or toilet paper (or 2) and have them fashion a wedding dress out of the toilet paper. One of the team members will volunteer as the model. Provide them with a “dress up trunk” filled with jewelry and shoes. They must make the dress out of the toilet paper, but they can accessorize with the provided jewelry, shoes, gloves and hats. Place a time limit on this (5 minutes is adequate) and have the bride vote on the best dress. Be sure to provide prizes for the winning team!
Another fun game that’s always a hit is making the bride get dressed while blindfolded. Tell the bride she is to pretend she’s on her honeymoon and the power has gone off. She must prepare for her wedding night in complete darkness. Provide her with a suitcase filled with items and then blindfold her. She must get dressed in a certain period of time (2 minutes is adequate) while completely blindfolded and with no help from the guests. Include some silly items like oversized sunglasses, garden gloves or a flannel nightgown just to make it fun. This is a photo opportunity, so be sure someone is waiting to record the end result!
Another fun game puts the shower guests more on the sport than the bride. In this game, everyone puts their purses in the center of the room. Create a list of items commonly found in a purse and assign a point value and create a list of less common items and give them a higher point value. So you might give lipstick 2 points, a tampon 3 points, and sunglasses 5 points. But a granola bar could be 10 points and a staple remover, 15 points. Then go through the purses awarding points and give the person with the highest number of points (and therefore, the most items and probably highest number of unusual items) a prize.
Before the shower, create bingo cards for this shower bingo game. In the squares, put pictures of items you think the bride will receive at the shower. So, boxes might include things like lingerie, towels and the like. As the bride opens gifts, have people mark off that item on their bingo card. If nobody gets a “bingo” give a prize to the person who marked off the most number of items.
This next game is a derivation of a popular game that’s often played at bachelorette parties and involves a stripper. This is the clean version. About 30 minutes into the party, have the bride leave the room and pass out pieces of paper. Have everyone write on the paper everything they can remember about the bride’s outfit, hair, etc. How many rings is she wearing? What color is her blouse? Is she wearing open or closed toed shoes? Once everyone is done recording their observations, the bride comes back into the room and a prize is awarded to the person with the best observation skills.
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