My friends Drea and Eddie are expecting a baby girl this fall.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might remember Drea’s gorgeous wedding. Or her fun bachelorette party. Or her super stylish bridal shower.

Anyway, now its time to celebrate the new addition.

Oh Creative One created the perfect invitation to set the stage for the party. I was so happy with what she designed for us!

Isn’t it perfect?!

I have to admit that I was a little overwhelmed when we settled on this theme.  Jewel tones and metallics are not my typical party looks. Most of my supplies lean more toward the rustic realm.

Amazing how a few trips to thrift stores and garage stores, some spray paint, and some borrowed signature pieces, came together so well to create this party.  I could not have been happier with how it turned out.

When guests arrived, we had appetizers and drinks out. People mingled about and we encouraged them to sign the guest book.

I purchased How the Camel Got His Hump from Amazon. I chose it because of the camel, but the colors on the cover ended up being perfect also. (I love that!)

Some gold doilies transformed an ordinary vase of flowers into a gorgeous vessel that fit our theme.

Lindsay found some yummy brightly colored sodas to serve along with white wines.

Since all of the hostesses have young babies, we had to keep the food pretty simple. We didn’t want to be cooking all morning.  I saw this post and we all knew it was the perfect solution.

Lindsay and I filled a cart with these bowls from Ikea, and we built our own salad bar.

 This was so much fun! I expected people to like it, but they all loved it! And I’m so glad we used the clear glass bowls because all the different colors of the toppings were beautiful.

Lindsay and I tossed guests’ salad with their dressing of choice in large plastic bowls and then scooped it back onto their plates.

We had seated tables for lunch.  We had alternating red & purple foil chargers over beautiful gold linens.  Lindsay and I scoured thrift stores for candle sticks in the weeks leading up to the shower.  A quick coat of spray paint to turn them old gold, and we had our centerpieces.  I also scored a huge bag of think gold hoops at a garage sale. We used them as napkin rings and sprinkled extras around the tables as well.
We also placed a large glass vessel with pita triangles and hummus on each table.
Placecards matched the invitation.

We rented a few umbrellas to scatter between seated tables.  We hung metallic bangle bracelets from the undersides of the umbrellas.  These were the one metallic thing I could find when I started hunting around my house originally! It was an easy touch.

Then it was time for gifts!

We created a cozy little area for gift opening, including large bedazzled pillows and colored glass stars.  We referred to this area as the “Moroccan Oasis.”

After that healthy salad lunch, it was time to splurge!

We stuck with the “bar” theme and had a build your own sundae bar.  Featuring San Francisco’s famous handmade Mitchell’s ice cream, of course. Yum Yum!

Drea loved the headshots I did at Katie’s shower, so we did it again for hers. We encouraged people to wear their big, bright jewelry to the shower and many people did.
The star of the jewelry show was Johanna’s wrist though. It didn’t make the headshot collage, but I couldn’t leave it off completely.

Gorg.

Congratulations Drea!!
We cannot wait until she’s here!!!

The countdown is officially on for these two!

Vendors:

Printables: Oh Creative One
Party Rentals: Danny Thomas Party Rentals 
Photos by Lindsay Little

My friends Katie & Casey are expecting their first child. I recently helped to throw her baby shower with 4 of her other girlfriends.

They have decided to wait until he or she is born to discover the gender.  Katie’s bff Sam was determined to avoid the standard “gender neutral” shower. Instead, she wanted to throw a shower celebrating both genders. A dual gender shower. We all had so much fun designing a shower that was 1/2 pink, 1/2 blue; 1/2 masculine, 1/2 feminine. There were so many fun touches!

Enjoy…

Of course, we turned to my go-to invite designer Jennafer of Oh Creative One to capture our vision.  She knocked it out of the park as usual.

Guests were greeted with the following display:

…and encouraged to “wear their vote” to predict the gender.  Snails for a boy, flowers for a girl.  Sam made the adorable snails with poster board and twine.  Too cute.

Guests were also asked to sign the guest book.

I found the perfect book on Amazon to compliment our theme.  The Book of Boys (for Girls) and the Book of Girls (for boys) is a funny kids book full of gender stereotypes.  Ha! It even mentions snails and sugar & spice! I could not resist.  Guests signed the inside cover.

Then it was off to the backyard, where we had two food tables set up.

One feminine:

And one masculine:

For the “girl” table, we used soft pink linen and a lace runner. We used our prettiest serving trays and bowls.  Food labels were pink polka dot labels held by clear glass photo cubes.  Pink and white poms hung above. Food items included green and fruit salads, turkey and vegetarian roll-ups, and a “dessert tower” which featured cream cheese stuffed strawberries, cake pops, and strawberry mini cupcakes.

For the “boy” table, we used blue a blue linen and burlap runner and pulled out all our rustic serving trays.  Mini chalkboards were food labels. We topped it off with brightly colored party poms and a bunting banner.  Food items on the boy table included pulled chicken sliders, mac and cheese muffins, potato salad, monster cookies, and “dirt” cups.

We had a seated lunch at tables that continued our theme.

Two were feminine:

And two were masculine:

 We used the same linens as the food tables.

The girl tables featured clustered flower arrangements, rhinestone napkin rings, silver chargers, and wine glasses.

The boy tables featured a simple wood centerpiece, mason jar drinking glasses, brown wicker chargers, and burlap napkin runners.

Even the chairs were part of the theme: brown for the boy table, white for the girl.

Party favors were inspired by something I found on Pintrest.

Lindsay and I made 1/2 pink and 1/2 blue striped pretzels and packaged them up for guests to take home.  Cute and easy!

I managed to capture almost all of the guests with their wearing their gender guess pin. (A couple people managed to escape me & my camera!)

What a fun record for Katie to have!

I cannot wait to meet him or her!