Jungle Baby Shower

This past Sunday, my SIL and I hosted a Jungle Baby Shower for my cousin. It was a lot of fun to plan and put together and I have some pics to share of the event. :)

My cousin is having Jungle Baby theme for the baby room so we went along with that theme for the shower. She is young, hip and somewhat wild herself so I wanted to keep the colors more vibrant than the traditional pastel colors when we think of baby.

She is expecting a boy...but not always. :) For the first 1/2 of her pregnancy the Dr. guessed it would be a girl even with the high tech 4D ultrasounds. My cousin decided on Colton for the name but for awhile his name was Layla. :)

For the Shower my SIL did the food and I took care of the decorating and games. My SIL loves baking/cooking so I was more than willing to give that task to her. :)

If you know me by now, I like to save a buck or 2. So I tried to decorate the best I could on a budget.

I made this fun banner out of on sale scrapbook paper and twine. I stenciled the letters with craft paint. I cut out some jungle animals from a scrapbook paper I had at home. The colors I mostly used for the decor were brown, blue, green and yellow.

I then added 3 pieces of brown and blue crepe paper to the banner to attach baby photos of the mommy and daddy. I just used poster putty, so mommy can easily detach the photos/crepe paper if she wanted to use the banner in his room.

Below the banner was a space to have a children's book signed by each guest. I love "Love you Forever" and my cousin will too as she reads to her sweet baby and remembers her special shower. Also on this table and around the room, I added building blocks (my son's), wood animals, paper flowers and 'tropical' looking plants. The shower was held at my aunt's house, so I used some of her plants to help with the decor.

Here's a closer look at the message in the frame. I took one of my distressed frames to use and added some zebra scrapbook paper.

Moving over to the food table...Probably the most expensive thing I bought for the shower was the fabric for the table cloth. I got 2 yards on sale at Hobby Lobby. I'm glad I got it because it really added to the look compared to a plain table cloth.

My SIL is a wonderful baker. She made peanut butter stuffed elephant cupcakes. Her co-worker's wife made the sweet elephant toppers. :)

How fun are these zebra cupcakes?! They are white cake with chocolate pudding in the middle. Yum!

She also included animal crackers.

Jungle Fruit: Bananas, Mango and Pineapple

And trail mix.

The fun wood animals are from Hobby Lobby already made for around 65 cents each.

Besides on the banner, I added a few extra baby pictures of the parents here and there.

My 2 young nieces were there to help so they helped scatter the blocks all over the room. :)

I forgot to mention my pom poms. How fun to make! Simple and cheap! I got the instructions from HERE from Martha Stewart. Each pom pom cost $1.

I also made these fun paper flowers using this TUTORIAL. They were also simple and cheap. I made them while watching a movie.

For activities, I had each guest introduce themselves, tell us how they know mommy and then give some mommy/baby advice. I had several advice ideas on small slips of paper that they had to pick out of my bowl.

For example:

 Advice on When Mommy & Baby get home from hospital

Newborn Advice

When Mommy is Frustrated

When Mommy is Exhausted.

Mommy Must Haves

Baby Must Haves

When Baby is in Elementary School

When Baby is in High School

Some advice was funny and others loving/sentimental.

Then I had 2 games planned. First was the the Picasso Baby game. Each guest had to draw a baby BUT could not look. I gave each one a paper plate and a marker and they had to put the plate on their head. There was lots of laughs during this one. Mommy got to pick the favorite drawing and that person was the winner.

Here's my grandma. I don't think she reads my blog...Good thing, she just 'loves' her picture taken. :)

We also played this fun Candy Bar Game! I think this was the favorite.

My cousin was blessed with many well needed gifts and she's all set for baby Colton to arrive any day now. Can't wait to meet him, so I can get my baby fix. :)

Linking up HERE