1201north: Build a Library Baby Shower

For those who don't know, Sarah is expecting her first baby at the end of this month. Our aunts hosted a shower for Sarah in Chicago, for all of our family and friends back home, but I wanted to host one for her in New York, as well.

I started the planning process by figuring out a theme for the shower. I wanted something that I could base all of the decor around. Because Sarah and Devin are not finding out the gender of Baby G (as we affectionately call him/her), I had to get creative. Baby Shower Land is chock-full of the tackiest baby shower ideas ever, in case you were wondering. All of the themes and games really made me cringe (the thought of adults melting candies into diapers to try to guess the flavor almost pushes me. over. the edge.)

One of my fondest childhood memories, that I know I share with Sarah and our brother, is reading children's books together and with our parents. All that reading must have paid off, because Sarah is now a Ph.D. in English Literature. Start early, people. I decided on a Build a Library theme for the shower, so that Baby G could be stocked with some children's lit classics from Day 1.

After deciding on the theme, I started a hunt for cute invitations. I knew that I wanted an invitation that looked like a library card, and was ecstatic to find the perfect design. Jen from lilmoptop on Etsy was great to work with and created the CUTEST invitations for the shower. She also created bookplates for each guest to place on the inside cover of the book they brought. At the shower, it was so fun to see all the books that people chose.

I wanted to pull the orange from the invitations into the rest of the decor for the shower. I found the idea for a book banner from this Martha Stewart baby shower post. Oh, Martha. You're too good. Using different colors of orange scrapbooking paper and some pages torn from college textbooks, I made the banner. I attached the books using clothespins and glued on paper stars.

Out of the same paper, I made star cupcake toppers. Super easy to make-- I just punched stars out of the craft paper and glued them on either side of a toothpick.

I had a picture of baby Sarah surrounded by books blown up by a local print shop. I glued it onto foam board, and then used clothespins to clip other pictures of baby Sarah and books around the edge. This I displayed on the center of the dessert/book table. Sugar cookie favors shaped like onesies (in various orange patterns) were made by a friend's amazingly talented mom.

All of the shower festivities took place in our dining room. I converted the dresser/buffet into a drink stand. Paper straws in mason jars are from Sip Sticks and orange drinks are our very favorite Izze's.

We spent most of the shower drinking mimosas and inhaling cupcakes, but also decorated onesies for little Baby G. The results ranged from puffy-painted gold chains to bow ties and are SUPER cute. Just doing our part to ensure that Baby G is always effortlessly styled.