Fetus Fiesta!

Our wonderful, dear friends who also happen to be close neighbors are having a baby girl in less than 2 months (yay!) so we happily offered to throw them a couples baby shower! When Ted and I sat down to discuss what theme it should be, we started with what food we should have. He suggested ceviche, and from there our Embarazada Extravaganza was conceived!!

I quite possibly went a little nuts, but got SO EXCITED about hosting a theme party that I kept finding more and more cute ideas!! For starters, I found party favors - little rubber duckies at Oriental Trading Company - they have so many different kinds! We used the mariachi band duckies and fiesta donkeys plus some small candies in little sacks to make individual pinatas! I set them out in a cute old suitcase in little packets next to an R for the baby's name that served as the guestbook. Everyone wrote cute messages to Baby R which she'll get to read in her room one day!

I had a great time on Pinterest searching for ideas and found some AMAZING Etsy vendors - I started with decorations, and the piece de resistance was the papel picado banner which was personalized with their last name. It was beautifully crafted and took up a great amount of space for decorating - AND they can frame it or hang it in the baby's room! 

I also found some super cute tissue paper garland - my friend had mentioned wanting some multi-colored pompoms on the curtain she made for the nursery, but I thought this would be a good alternative if she couldn't find those!

Another idea I stole from Etsy (but totally did myself because IT IS SO EASY), was these adorable gold glitter bottle vases. Let me preface this by stating that my friend works at a brewery, so beer bottles and cans, and also wine bottles, were a perfect item to use to decorate for their shower! These turned out classy and also can be used in their yellow and pink nursery!

  

How to make these:

Step 1 - drink a lot of wine and beer!

Step 2 - buy some sample pots of fun colored paint at Home Depot, some Mod Podge, and some gold glitter

Step 3 - turn on a fun movie (I watched "Big Business" because I'm on a Lily Tomlin/Jane Fonda kick after watching "Grace & Frankie"!) and get to painting! Paint about 3-4 coats of the paint and let it dry overnight.

Step 4 - mix the glitter in with the Mod Podge so you don't get glitter flakes everywhere, use a craft sponge, and paint 3-4 coats of glitter glue around the bottom. Done!!

(This whole process reminded me of my wedding shoe project that got me started on this blog!! ~Memories~..,)

The last decorating project was the tissue paper flower doorway that ended up turning out SO PRETTY!! I had a few little hiccups (and of course a helpful kitty sitting on my project) but discovered that if you trim the tissue paper to be rectangular rather than square (maybe I bought extra cheap paper??) the folds will expand to make a full circle rather than a little bow tie shape!! (Fold the tissue paper accordion-style using the short side as the width of the flower. The longer the other edge, the more folds you'll have, and the more likely you can pull your accordion folds into a full circle!). Also, cut the paper into different sizes to make different sized flowers! Just hang them up with masking tape so your wall paint doesn't get removed, and voila!!

 

Equally if not more important as the decorations - the food!! I started with the aforementioned ceviche which we made for my Shark Party a few years ago - we just left out the plastic sharks this time ;) We served this with chips, salsa, and guacamole using basic ingredients - avocado, garlic cloves (one clove per avocado), an onion, salt & pepper, a little lime juice, and a fun little extra - chopped mango! It gave it a little twist and made it super tasty.

Possibly the biggest hit, food-wise, was the margarita cupcakes!! I can't take credit since I got the recipe online, but OH MY GOODNESS THESE WERE DELICIOUS!!! We found adorable little flower wrappers to go with the theme, and only shortened the cook time by 5 minutes since I made tiny cupcakes rather than the regular size. I did 1.5x the recipe which ended up making 45 tiny cupcakes, and all but 2 were eaten at the shower! (I finished those shortly after... these cupcakes were alive no more than 12 hours.)

Last, but certainly not least, was the beverage selection. Of course the mom-to-be brought some beer from her workplace! I also made agua fresca made up of raspberry lemonade, peach bellini fizzy water, fizzy lime water, and some ginger ale - super yummy and refreshing, as it should be! And for the non-pregnant, we had watermelon sriracha sangria - I had a sip of this scrumptious beverage at a friend's party last year when I was heavily pregnant and have been craving it ever since so I could have a full-sized glass, and I am so happy I had an excuse to make it!! It was just the right amount of sweet and spicy. I made a triple batch which left us with enough to have a few glasses on our own after the party guests left - it has to be consumed within a few days since it has wine in it, so darn, I guess I'll just take one for the team and polish it off!

Another plus about this shower - it was SUPER affordable!! For 30+ adults plus a handful of kiddos, it averaged about $7.50 per person! What wasn't consumed was left over as keepsakes (ok, maybe not ALL of the rubber duckies were keepsakes... and maybe not the tissue paper flowers either...), so *almost* nothing went to waste. I kinda want to throw this party ALL the time!! 

Everyone had a great time eating, drinking, chatting, and eventually opening up ridiculously adorable baby gifts. I'm so excited for our new little neighbor to arrive - congratulations, Joe & Jamie!!