Nautical Baby Shower

I guess I've been MIA lately - okay, for a long time. Just about ever. I just haven't had the time for blogging between working, keeping the house in some kind of (dis)order, and taking care of my family. As much as I enjoy blogging, it just didn't fit into my busy schedule so I had to be content just reading other blogs.

Well, now I have a whole lot more time for...just about anything I want to do! I lost my job a few days ago so I'll be home with my kiddo until I can find something new. I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom, so I'm definitely going to enjoy this for as long as it lasts :)

In the meantime, here's what I've been up to lately. My sister in law is set to have her second baby (another boy!) at the end of February. My wonderful mother in law Cheryl and I have been planning for the past few months to throw a baby shower for her. It was a lot of work, but I had so much fun doing it! We finally held the shower last weekend, and I'm really excited to share the pictures here.

My sister in law wanted to do a nautical theme without using the red you usually see. It was a little bit of a challenge to avoid it, but we flexed our brains and creative muscle and came up with tons of blue and green nautical ideas. I have to give an enormous amount of credit to Pinterest. We never would have come up with so many great ideas without you, dear Pinterest. *purple pink puffy heart*

If you want to see our inspiration board, click here.

The banner my mother in law made. She came up with the design and hand painted it all on her own. Isn't it awesome?!

We got pictures of my sister in law and her husband as babies and hung them on the staircase railing with some fishing net from Party City and a life preserver.

Drinks: we offered coffee, soda, punch, water, and (I think) tea. I typed the "Drink like a fish" sign out in MS Word and printed it on  fancy paper.

More from the drink station. Yummy biscotti and rock candy for sweetening coffee.

Food: the hubs made everything himself and it was totally amazing! From L-R: toasted bruschetta, mini shrimp and steak taco, fruit salad kebabs, Caprese salad kebabs. We made the decorations using flowers from the Dollar Store and beer bottles wrapped in twine.

Close up of the Caprese and fruit. Let me just say...I <3 Caprese salad.

Close up of the mini tacos. These were SO.GOOD. I could have eaten them all, but I was one of the last people to the food line. Sadly, they were almost gone.

As a surprise, we had everyone complete a letter to baby James for my sister in law to open later.

The sweet letter my mother in law composed

Decorations: Flowers, sand, and vases from the Dollar Store. Wood pilings made from a large wooden dowel, cut, painted, distressed, and tied with twine. Anchor votive also (I think) from the Dollar Store. Sailboat cutout printed from internet and colored last minute with my three year old's crayons.

Dessert table. Cookies, cake, chocolate dipped marshmallows, chocolate dipped pretzels, cake pops

Catch of the Day Cookies, "James" letters purchased from Michael's and Mod Podged with scrapbook paper

Chocolate covered marshmallows. We had to do lots of quality control checks to make sure they were OK to serve to the general public :-)

Bubble garland (made with paint chips), 3-D nautical stars, buoys from Old Time Pottery, burlap from Joann's

Ship's wheel from Old Time Pottery, place mats from Pier 1, nautical rope balls made with balloons, twine, and Mod Podge

Wood coasters made by my mother in law. She did a base coat of paint and then dry brushed the designs on using a stencil. We were going to hot glue felt onto the back to protect the tables, but ran out of time.

Piano top display

Life preserver wrapped silverware. The quote is from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

More arrangements.

I wrapped some "It's a Boy!" ribbon around a neat old copper plant container. We ended up using it to hold the wrapping paper and ribbon after gifts were opened.

More piano arrangements. Quote is from Scrapbook.com

One of the gifts

The games we played were the purse scavenger hunt game, the baby item memory game, and the tummy size guessing game. 

My sister in law had a great time and got many, many beautiful gifts. I'd say it was a great success!

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