When planning a baby shower, pinterest will quickly lead you down a rabbit whole of inspiration for decorations. My aunt and I both collected up a few of our favorite ideas and worked with the entire family to bring them to life. I’ve talked about the amazing food and floral arrangements from Safeway over the last couple of days and today I wanted to share how all the woodland baby shower decor came together.
My cousin decided not to find out the gender of her baby till they are born which meant everything at the shower would be be gender neutral and a woodland theme was the perfect inspiration for creating a backdrop that could be perfect for celebrating both a little girl or a little boy.
In this photo you can see a few of the DIY projects that we’ll dive into including the gift table teepee, woodland candle luminaries and the wooden cutout forest. We also put together a woodland onsie station where guest could decorate their own onesies for the mom-to-be.
I came across a tutorial on how to make luminaries for the holidays and thought this might be a fun project to try as a part of the decorations for the cake table. This was such an easy and fun DIY to work on. First I purchased a bundle of woodland animals from the Silhouette studio and cut out a set that would fit the various recycled jars I had rounded up. Next I applied the cut vinyl to the jars and spray panted the color on. It was really just that easy.
The lesson I learned with this project is that real candles do make the jars to hot. For safety I recommend you use battery operated lights instead of the ones I used, all of these were blown out immediately after taking these photos.
I am obsessed with how adorable teepees for kids are. For the gift table there was no reason to make a full size, functional teepee but having one with a bit of height created a space for the little bear to sit. To make this teepee I used 3 yards of fabric, 3 large wooden dowels, and 2 yards of cord. I cut the cord in half and used half the cord to hold the dowels in a teepee shape. Next we took the fabric and draped it around the frame, again tying the top off with the cord. Clothing pins folded the fabric doors back inside.
This wasn’t the most sturdy or functional teepee but it worked perfectly for the decorations!
My aunt is an amazing wood artist and she made both the trees for the gift table and a stork with a darling baby hedgehog for the entrance of the house. The hedgehog was taken directly off the shower invitation design and I can’t get over how sweet his little face turned out.
This was another incredibly easy project to put together. The art itself is a quote printed by Office Max on 16×18″ card stock and the stamps and stamp pads came from Joanne Fabric. You could do this with virtually any quote and make a custom piece of artwork to hang in a nursery.
Decorating onesies for the new baby is a fun project for everyone to work on and makes the perfect shower gift after the party is done. We used heat transfer vinyl and cut out a variety of woodland patterns for guests to choose from. We set up an iron and a stack of onesies and everyone was able to personalize their design during the party.
I didn’t make either of these two last items but they are both so adorable that I needed to share them!
My cousins mother in law made this adorable little guy out of cheese, olives, and nuts. He was just so sweet it was almost hard to cut into the guy!
I’m obsessed with banners right now and this beauty was made by a gal right here in Denver. This is the second banner I’ve ordered from her and I am always in love with the quality and uniqueness. These guys are each about 10 inches tall and cut from heavy card stock. You can find more designs like this on Let’s Get Stamping.
This was such a fun party to put together and I can’t wait to meet my new little cousin in just few weeks! You can see the rest of the party and learn how Safeway helped bring it all together on my posts about Safeway’s easy catering trays and Safeway’s Floral Arrangements.
Virtual baby showers are a great way to get together family and friends no matter their location. Check out these ideas for virtual party games and get planning today!
I’ve always been a huge fan of the quote ‘I’d rather have flowers on my table than diamonds on my neck’. When we started brainstorming what we wanted to do for my cousin Jeannie’s baby shower, I knew we needed some beautiful floral arrangements to pull the look and woodland theme of the party together.
For me personally, the month of October was chaos. I worked on five different recipe segments for Channel 2 and I’ve been wildly prepping holiday posts and other recipes. As much as I love DIY and making a ton of decorations by hand (you’ll see what I did make my next post), I just couldn’t DIY another thing.
Last spring I attended an event at the Safeway headquarters were they showed us all some of the amazing things each local store can put together. I was blown away by the beautiful flowers at that event and with my crazy October schedule looming I knew that I could trust Safeway to put together some beautiful arrangements for the shower.
Safeway has an amazing team of in-house floral designers and you can go into any store to order custom arrangements. When I was in high school even remember working with the floral designer (ironically at the SAME store these came from) to design a special boutonniere for my prom date.
For Jeannie’s baby shower, I talked with the Safeway’s floral designer and shared a bit of our vision for the party decorations. With a woodland theme we would be using rustic colors like cream, brown and greens throughout the rest of the room.
I absolutely love the vases she used to put these together. The bark coated vases brought in the woodland shower theme perfectly and helped us pull the decor throughout the party together.
All of the flowers were stunning and smelled amazing. Each arrangement contained a similar set of flowers including hydrangeas, roses, daisy’s and deconstructed sunflowers. The sunflowers were a particularly creative way to pull brown colors into the display. To obtain that look the floral designer actually removed the yellow colored petals so only the brown center of the flower remained. It created such a beautiful and fun display.
I love how easy it was to order these arrangements and was so impressed with how everything came out. Not only were they beautiful the day of the shower but they stayed beautiful for nearly two weeks after.
More party highlights are coming your way throughout the week! Looking for other party planning tips? Check out my review of Safeway’s Catering Tray’s that we used to make this party completely stress-free!
This post was sponsored by Safeway. Safeway provided catering samples and floral arrangements to inspire this post.
My extended family is incredibly close. Growing up we even lived together in one house for a large portion of my childhood, with my Grandmother watching the cousins who didn’t live with us while my Aunt and Uncle worked. Spending this much time together made our relationship more like siblings then cousins.
When my cousin Jeannie announced that she was expecting her first baby, I was so excited to start working on her shower alongside the rest of my family. As we began planning, I wanted to do something fun and spend more time on decorations than food to make her woodland baby shower really special.
What better way to plan a stress free party then letting someone else handle the food. Our local Safeway has an amazing deli and bakery, so I had them help me put together an amazing spread of food so I could spend more time decorating!
Safeway has an huge entertaining guide outlining all of their catering selections that you can pick up at your local store.
A party wouldn’t be a celebration without an amazing fruit and cheese platter. The fruit and fromage tray is the perfect combination of your favorite artisan cheeses along side fresh seasonal fruit. Each tray is put together with beautiful artistic touches like rosette oranges.
This overflowing beauty is a large tray meant to serve 18 – 24 guests.
Veggie trays are always one of my favorite things and the Garden Fresh Vegetable Tray is a bounty of fresh veggies everyone will love. I’m the person who ends up standing next to the veggie tray snacking away throughout an entire party so having a wide variety of options gives me a few things to choose from.
The Garden Fresh Vegetable Tray has veggie tray classics like cucumbers, cauliflower and carrots but it ALSO has things like jicama, snap peas and green onions. I love getting a bit more variety. The ranch dip is served in a hollowed out cabbage! I love how it adds a touch of color to the display and keeps from having more plastics to recycle.
For the main course we picked out two different kinds of sandwiches. The tea sandwiches are the perfect size for giving guests something a bit more hearty without overfilling their plate. A combination of turkey on white and ham on wheat sandwiches mean there is a little something for everyone.
Tortilla roll ups are one of my favorite things for parties and I love this more filling variation that Safeway calls Hye Rollers. Deli meat, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce and cream cheese made these tasty roll up’s a favorite of everyone at the party!
The cake was the show stopper of the entire party. Safeway has amazing cake decorators who can take your pinterest inspiration and turn it into a reality. This naked cake design captured the woodland shower theme perfectly. Rosemary, mint leaves and cinnamon sticks added natural elements that bought the entire effect together. Our woodland creatures are nestled alongside a miniature fire made from toffee and chocolate.
To ensure there were enough treats for everyone at the party we added cupcakes that would be easy to hand out as people were ready for sweets. I could not get over the little pinecones added to the top. The details in the icing was really amazing.
The best part about ordering catering trays from Safeway for this event was how amazingly simple the food prep turned out. I picked everything up the day before the party and about an hour before guests were due to start arriving brought them out and remove the lids. It was really that easy. After this experience I will never hand assemble another party tray. The stress free aspect of having the food completely taken care of is by far the best way to throw a party!
More party highlights are coming your way throughout the week! Looking for other party planning tips? Check out my posts full of tailgating tips.
This post was sponsored by Safeway. Safeway provided catering samples and floral arrangements to inspire this post.
When I was in college, tailgating at Colorado State meant getting up early to load up a car, timing things correctly to get everyone into the lot at the same time, and enjoying some Natty light in the dirt parking lot next to Hughes Stadium. As an alumni, tailgating is a bit more of an art, especially now that CSU has moved to an on campus stadium.
Just a couple of weeks ago I was honored to be asked to help share some tailgating tips with the crew at Fox31 Denver in honor of National Tailgating Day and the Rocky Mountain Showdown. The full video clip of the segment is below.
In addition to what I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to put together a few of my favorite tailgating tricks for planning the ultimate alumni tailgate that you can try on no matter where you went to school!
We’ve officially ‘graduated’ from the mini charcoal grill.
My all time favorite tailgating tool is a discada. The first time I saw a discada was while visiting family in New Mexico. Different parts of the country call these outdoor cooking tools different things, a disco, cowboy wok, etc. Discada’s are old plow disks that have been recycled and refinished to be used over a burner stand.
The 22″ discada and 12″ burner stand from Carolina Cooker is my new go to tailgating tool. Easily transportable, the propane powered setup allows me to cook my favorite meals and serve a big crowd at the same time!
This entire set up costs approximately $73. Shop now on ArgiSupply.com
If you need inspiration for what you want to cook, I’m loving the new ‘Official SEC Tailgating Cookbook’. When you love football you have to appreciate the SEC’s ability to take college sports to a whole new level.
Created by the team at Southern Living, each SEC team has a section featuring food and recipes football teams across the country will love. My personal favorite is the Creole Gumbo which I’ll be mixing up for a tailgate as soon as the weather is cold! [Tailgating tip: The Carolina Cooker Stand from the discada can be used with a stock pot!]
The Official SEC Tailgating Cookbook is available on Amazon now and would make a perfect holiday gift for a football fan.
Say goodbye to the suitcase of beer.
In college, the cheaper the beer, the better the party. As an Alumni I’ve found that I value the flavor of the drinks I consume and a mixed drink is a 100x better than a sour watered down light beer.
Thanks to having a car with an outlet in the back one of my FAVORITE new ways to tailgate is with the Bibo Barmaid. No need to have that friend who’s always the bartender, the Bibo helps to make a perfectly mixed drink on demand.
ket of your choice and Bibo will add the correct amount of water to the mixer. Finish it off with the recommended alcohol and you have a bar quality mixed drink in minutes, without needing to store a ton of mixer bottles at your tailgate.
Today I am making a Ram-a-Rita using the Bibo Barmaid Margarita mix, and adding tequila and beer to my finished drink.
The Bibo Barmaid is available on Amazon for $195.
If you don’t have easy access to an outlet, mixing drinks the old fashioned ways is always an option. One of my favorite easy drinks to pack and mixup on game day is a Black and Gold Whiskey Tea using Clyde May’s Alabama Style Whiskey.
We all know that Alabama KNOWS football and when picking the perfect football beverage you can’t go wrong with Clyde May. With origins during WW2, Clyde May is an apple-infused whiskey perfect for adding to sweet tea or even drinking straight. It has a sweet finish, but is not what I would call fruity despite the slight apple addition.
Clyde May is available in Denver at Argonaut Liquor or Total Beverage.
Beyond beer pong.
During college a folding table and a few plastic cups made the perfect set up for hours of entertainment. As an alumni, spending several hours outside means you need to socialize more than drink (or socialize while you drink). Playing a few games is the ideal way to do that!
Larger than life yard games are a fun way to catch up with friends during a tailgate.
Giant Jenga from the Tammie Rose Collection is an ideal way to enjoy a game among friends AND scar the pants off your neighbor when things come crashing to the ground. These beautiful sets include a easy to use carry case and are stained to make your set really stand out.
Cornhole is a tailgating classic and these beautiful boards from Colorado Cornhole Guy can not be beat. With the ability to print any design you want on the top, these are quite honestly the most beautiful board set’s I’ve ever seen. Each board is constructed with a smooth top, ensuring that nothing snags the top of the set.
Another game that only becomes more fun when giantized is Jenga. The classic dice game is perfect for killing time while waiting for food to cool. This school color personalized Jenga set is available from Mile High Gifts on Etsy.
If you have a large crowd, Corkaine is the perfect way to get everyone involved in the tailgating festivities. Up to four players can enjoy trying out one of 12 games with this fun and unique yard game set. The object of the game is for competitors to launch corks into the various cups on the game board. The team with the most corks in a single cup wins the cup!
I’m so excited that tailgating season is officially underway! What are your favorite things about tailgating? Leave a note in the comments and let me know what tips you’d add to this list!
