Thursday, September 24, 2015

Hot Air Balloon Baby Shower

Up, up, and away!

When my littlest sister found out she was expecting her first baby, my other sister and I immediately started planning her shower. As in, we created a secret Pinterest board, began texting ideas, and discussing the best weekend to have the party before the announcement phone call was even over. We have all thrown each others bridal and baby showers and we love being able to go a bit overboard to celebrate the big  moments in our sisters' lives. 


For our baby sister, we settled on a hot air balloon/vintage travel theme for the shower, as she was decorating with that theme in her nursery. We found these gorgeous invites on Etsy and used the beautiful vintage colors as a jumping off point for the rest of the shower planning. 



On the day of the shower, this cute wreath greeted our guests as they arrived {bonus: we gifted this to my sister when the shower was over and she still has it on her front door}. It was a very simple, last minute project with materials that I happened to have on hand, but it turned out great.


Once inside, we had a little welcome table set up with my favorite part of the whole shower: an actual hot air balloon! It was such a fun surprise and our guest of honor was so excited about this decor.


The hot air balloon basket was where we had guests place their advice cards full of uplifting advice {I can never pass up a good pun}.




The diaper cake was also on the welcome table and I think it turned out so beautiful. We used pre-ruffled pink ribbon and thin gold glitter ribbon that we picked up from our local hobby store. I love the mix of pink and gold. And thank goodness for my Silhouette, which I used to cut out the adorable balloon topper.



From  the welcome table, we had the guests move into the front room where we had the food and drinks set up.



We offered water, tea, and a sparkling raspberry lemonade.



For our guests who were so inclined, the sparkling raspberry lemonade mixed with lemonade vodka made an exceptional mid-afternoon cocktail.


Our food table had another hot air balloon, the cake, and all the yummy food.


We put croissants in the balloon basket


which was used to make chicken salad sandwiches.


We also had these amazing cucumber sandwiches {the same ones we served at my other sister's Kentucky Derby inspired baby shower}.

 We had a simple fruit salad...


...mini blueberry muffins {which was one of my sister's pregnancy cravings} along with mini strawberry danishes.


To satisfy those with a sweet tooth {like me}, we had small eclairs...


...and tasty meringue cookies.




We also had shrimp cocktail {another pregnancy craving}...


...and savory bruschetta bites.




We made a two-tiered strawberry cake {my sisters's favorite flavor} and iced it with a pale sky blue icing. Using the Silhouette, we cut small cloud shapes out of white sugar sheets purchased from our local hobby store and stuck them onto the blue icing. 


Then we cut out a mama balloon, papa balloon, and a baby girl balloon and used those for our cake topper.


To continue our travel theme, we had an old steamer truck in the corner of the room, with a lighted globe on top of it.


 We made a bunch of three dimensional paper hot air balloons and had them hanging from the chandelier over the dining room table, where we had a pitcher of fresh flowers. 


We also strung up a garland of the paper hot air balloons from the mantel, behind the mama-to-be as she opened gifts and played our shower game of His or Hers. The game was a lot of fun. We had a list of baby's attributes {like eye color, humor, intelligence} and had the guests guess if the mom-to-be wanted baby to get mom's or dad's genes for that characteristic. After writing down their guesses, we went around the room and had the guests hold up either a mustache or red lips to indicate what they thought my sister would want for that particular trait. Points were earned for correct guesses and the winner received a cute mug with a coffee shop gift card.


After a fantastic afternoon, the guests headed out and grabbed their hot air balloon cookie favor out of an antique suitcase.


We loved hosting this fun and adorable hot air balloon party for our baby sister and were so happy to be able shower her with love in preparation for the arrival of her baby girl.





1 comment:

  1. This was an amazing shower and I loved attending. You ladies are so creative.

    Cheryl

    ReplyDelete