When your bestie tells you that she is pregnant with twins its of course your duty to throw the perfect baby shower. When your bestie tells you she is pregnant and you yourself have four kids its only impossible to dedicate Martha Stewart like time to throw your bestie the baby shower of her dreams. Last week I discovered that throwing a “Martha Stewart” like baby shower when you have four kids of your own can be accomplished, with some help of course. Here’s how I did it and here are my top faves for great vendors that helped me get there…..

Step One: Invitations

To say that I am not creative would be a vast understatement of the truth. I am not going to tell you that I personally hand make baby shower invitations due to my extensive experience in scrap booking. What I can do is pick out ultra-fabulous invitations for just about any event at Tiny Prints (if you are planning a bridal shower check out their sister site Wedding Paper Divas for great wedding related stationary). Here’s what’s great about Tiny Prints, not only can you personalize your invitations and change certain layout aspects, you can also have them address them and mail them out for you (for an additional cost of course)! Here’s why that ‘s great, if you are like me and find virtually no time to go to the local post office, dread stuffing envelopes, and can’t bribe your kids to lick them closed, Tiny Prints will do all of that stuff for you! They will even help you import your guest’s addresses into their guest list manager so there is no need to type every address! Besides making the mailing aspect much easier, they have a great selection of invitations, matching favor labels, and gift tags. Lastly (and one I would consider really important since waiting to order invitations until the last minute seems to be my thing) they have great turnaround and super quick shipping. I always get my order prior to the expected delivery date and if you sign up for their newsletter you even get a great discount! So the winner for a great place to get invitations that are super stylish, inexpensive, and come with great web-service is…….TINY PRINTS!!!! Here is a picture of the shower invitation that seriously made me look like an invitation god…

 

Step Two: Decorations and Pins

My bestie has thrown me more baby showers than I care to discuss and each time she manages to come up with great decorations and even better pins (also known as capias). Again, as the least creative person I know I really had to go out on a limb with this. Who am I kidding, I made her help me with this, BUT I do have some great tips on how and where to get really great decorations without going over budget and without taking up too much of your time.

First up is a great store in Brooklyn called Party Glitters. Now usually I am one to only shop at bigger retail outlets but my good friend (and co-host for this event) Tamiko, told me about this great little gem in Brooklyn. For a smaller party store they seriously have everything under the sun that you would need for a great party. Their customer service is great and since they are a smaller chain, they really can give more personal service. Here’s what I scored at this great spot: themed napkins, cake plates, table cloths, cups, and supplies for the pins. Now in terms of making the pins (capias) they can also do this for you which if you are working with a larger budget I totally suggest you explore. They have a great selection of ribbons and decorative fronts. But if you are like me and would rather put your money where your mouth is (in the cake of course) then you can get all the supplies to also make the pins your self. From the ribbons (which are personalized to order with a one week turnaround) to the decorative front to the backing they have it all. With a little help from a glue gun which you can get at any craft store, you can make gorgeous handmade pins in no time. Here are pics of  the pins that we made…

 

My other great resource for decorations is of course Party City. This is a great place for party supplies, including balloons, and they have several locations around the country. They also allow you to shop online which is great if you can’t bear to bring all of your kids shopping at the party store that also sells tons of candy. From here I pre-ordered the balloons, which for a small fee they will also bag up for you making it easier for your to transport them to your venue. Unfortunately they do not deliver, so clearing out your car is going to be necessary.

 

Step Three: Shower Games and Prizes

Shower games can easily be found online. Some fun ones that are always a hit are of course the Word Scramble and the celebrity baby name game. More great games can also be found at http://baby-shower.yeahbaby.com. I suggest arming yourself with three to four games to keep your guests busy. Most of these games don’t require too many supplies or too much effort in coordinating. The “Don’t Say Baby” game is a great ice-breaker and you only need some clothes pins to play.

Finding great prizes for your winners can easily dry out your pockets, but here are some great places to find elegant and fun gifts that won’t break your bank and won’t take you forever to find. Gift bags can be purchased at your local dollar store.

• Victoria’s Secret always has great travel sized lotions and body spray gift sets for under $10.00 each. These things can usually be found in stores.
• Target also has really great finds for your guests. Check out this great find for just $8.00 that anyone who loves a great margarita will appreciate…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Home Goods is a great place to find gift sets are both inexpensive and put together well so you don’ have to. Body lotion, beautiful stationary, candles, and cute high heel ice cubes are just some of the great finds I picked up at Home Goods. Here is a pic of some of the things that I picked up…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step Four: Thank You Favors and The Cake

Okay so these two components are by far the most important, for two reasons. A. The cake is what people will always remember. No one likes a bad tasting cake and B. People always like to take something home from showers that they can eat. Trust me I have been to dozens of events and always appreciate some good cake and a tasty parting gift to enjoy later (usually in my car on the way home). So here are my tips for scoring big on the cake and thank you favors….

Cake:

Unless you have the time to bake your own cake, which let’ats be honest if you did you wouldn’t need my other time saving tips, here are two great local bakeries that will definitely have your guests wanting more. First up Make My Cake located in Harlem, New York. Now while I didn’t use them for this event because I am located in New Jersey, I recently went to another baby shower that had a cake from here and can I just say this cake was heavenly. Moist, rich, and decadent with a gorgeous design made this cake a must have. My other top pick hands down is Splurge Bakery located in Millburn, New Jersey. I found this place accidentally while driving through Millburn and may I just say I sure am glad I found this place! Not only do they do custom cakes, they also do logo cookies, and cute cupcakes. All of which are very necessary when faced with having to bring treats to your kid’s class and you have no time to bake them yourself but you want them to taste like you did. Everyone at my event had great things to say about this cake and one person even took half the cake home! Their customer service is great, they even allowed me to email them a picture of the invite for them to use as a basis for the cake design! Here is a pic of the custom cake I ordered (be sure to order the cake at least two weeks in advance)…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank You Favors:

Okay so I initially planned on making chocolate dipped strawberries, but after assessing all the work that I would have to put into that project I changed my mind. I still wanted to hand make something so I decided on cookies, however I waited until the absolute last minute to start working on this project so I needed to find a way to make 80 cookies while also making dinner for my four kids and packing one of them up to go away for the summer. So here’s what I did….I purchased pre-packaged and pre-cut Nestle Toll House cookies that only needed to be placed on some parchment paper and baked at 350 degrees for ten minutes. I purchased circular party bags from Party City and some great blue and white ribbon with “Its a Boy” printed on it from my local Dollar Store. After allowing the cookies to cool for about 20 minutes, I bagged two cookies in each bag, tied them with the ribbon, curled it with some scissor, and tied a Favor Label (from Tiny Prints) to it. This whole process took me about an hour and if I had a bigger cookie sheet it would have taken me even less time to do! Everyone marveled at how yummy my “homemade” cookies were and were amazed at how I managed to find the time to do this with all my mommy responsibilities. After a few sighs and moans as to how much work it was, I actually felt kind of bad knowing that this really only took me an hour and I never even dirtied one dish! Honestly the hardest part was in the labels which did require a few steps, but nothing too difficult. They come as stickers, so I just stuck them on white card stock, cut them out, and used a hole puncher to punch holes to tie the ribbon through. This took me about 20 minutes tops to get done. Here’s a pic of the end result….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there you have it…. a fabulous baby shower thrown in no time without breaking the bank!