Birdie baby shower

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but I have been crazy busy getting ready for a baby shower I'm hosting and I didn't want to post about anything I was working on for fear of ruining the surprise. But the shower was today and was a roaring success! I threw a bird-themed baby shower at my home for a good friend having her second little girl. She's obsessed with birds (the mom, not the fetus...yet) and is decorating the baby's room in a bird theme. So I thought why not throw a birdie shower?

I've noticed that birdie stuff is super popular lately, especially for kids and babies. I had some ideas brewing, but a simple google search brought up some really lovely ideas. I cribbed a few from this site and this one, and then it sort of grew organically from there.

I loved the idea of doing cupcakes with a "nest" of coconut on top. And I had the perfect recipe to go with it (for more on the food, check out my cooking blog). However, I had a really hard time finding the robin's egg candies that were pictured on several different sites. I'm guessing that they might have been easier around Easter time. So instead, I had to make do with Jordan almonds, which was less than ideal. In the end, I nixed the almonds and just left the cupcakes as is.

My best friend gave me the idea to do a kind of bird garland made of felt. She even went so far as to make me a template and a few prototypes and mail them to me from out-of-state! I loved this idea, but I'm not entirely sure I executed it as well as it deserved.

I ran out of time to put wings on all the birds, and I probably should have thought of a better way to hang them too. Ideally, a tree branch of some sort would have been perfect, but I simply did not have the time or energy to find one or chop one down from the tree in my yard. Still they were very pretty individually, and I think that they'll look nice in the baby's room.

I also picked up a few birdhouses to use as decorations, but I kind of floundered at the last minute over what to do with them. Again, I ran out of time to paint them, but they were cute as a makeshift centerpiece, especially once I paired them with a "nest" made of green excelsior and some fake eggs.

My mother-in-law even got in on the act, and sent me this beautiful birdhouse that I put in the entryway, next to the favor bowl.

For favors, I ordered a bunch of bird-shaped soaps from Etsy, which I then packaged in a cellophane bag with a little excelsior nest.

Last but not least, I had a group craft. Neither the guest-of-honor nor I are much for shower games, so I thought this would be a nice little activity. I didn't want to do the typical onesie painting since this was a second baby and I knew that she already had plenty of clothes. Instead, I thought it'd be cool to do something that could go in the baby's room. So I bought some 6-inch square canvas boards and acrylic paint with the idea that everyone could decorate one small board, and then she could hang them all in some sort of grid in the baby's room.

Unfortunately, I didn't think this one entirely through before I started buying stuff. I realized that some of my guests were not going to be as thrilled with an art project as I would be and would beg off, claiming a lack of artsy-craftsy skills. I thought that perhaps making stencils would make it easier, but the more I thought about it, the less I thought that people would want to mess with paint.

Instead, I decided to have them do paper cut-outs. I recruited my wonderfully talented friend Jacki to make templates so that people could just trace, cut and paste. Then I conscripted my very patient and understanding husband to help 'prime' the canvases by painting them solid colors. This may be the only photo you will ever see of him on this blog, haha!

Here are the finished canvases. I think they look fantastic, especially against the tablecloth, which is more or less the color of the baby's room. Now we just have to figure out how the heck we're going to hang them, haha!