A Family Baby Shower

My husband and I ran around with the same group of friends in college. Most of us live in Houston now, but now that we all have kids, it gets harder and harder to get together. So, a great excuse is a baby! 

Our close friends, Amy and Joel, are welcoming a baby girl in June, and I wanted to throw a mini baby shower to welcome her! We invited a few of our favorite little families. 

The theme was very simple- pink, pink, and more pink. Tough for all the guys that were invited! 

The decor

I made another banner for the mantle. I used these awesome glitter letters from Hobby Lobby. The background paper is cut into 4.5 inch flower shapes (accent essentials cartridge) and the white is 4.25 inch. I used double stick tape and a matching ribbon to put it all together. Pretty painless.

I borrowed the lanterns from my ma-in-law. I think they are from Party City. And I made the tissue pom poms. 

The food

For appetizers, I put together a simple veggie tray with ranch, a spinach parmesan dip from Costco, and Wholly Guacamole. With an array of chips, everyone was happy for a while. 

For our main course, I served Pioneer Woman's Dr. Pepper pulled pork with King's Hawaiian rolls (and pickles!) and Barefoot Contessa's tarragon chicken salad (minus the grapes) with mini croissants. I also had fruit salad on the side. For those picky eaters (like my child), I had a small deli tray with meat, cheese, and crackers. 

The cake!

For this cake, I used the same recipe that I used for Leah's birthday cake, but I left out the sprinkles. This recipe is a yummy lemon cake that turns out very moist. It is my new favorite!

I made a two-layer 8 inch cake and used white buttercream for a thin crumb coat. Then, I took a small circle cookie cutter and gently pressed it into the cake where I wanted my roses. This was used as a guide so my roses would be about the same size and shape all throughout my cake. 

Next, I put a small amount of soft pink coloring into my icing. I made a piping bag of this icing out of about 1/3 of the icing. Then I added more coloring and made a second bag. Then a little more coloring for the last bag. This made the ombre effect on the cake. I used a star tip to create the roses. If you try this technique, start from the bottom of the cake with the darkest icing. Each individual rose should start from the middle and work out. Wherever my crumb coat showed through, I put a small star. 

For the banner, I used cookie sticks (in the baking aisle at Michael's), ribbon, scrapbook paper, and letter stickers.

We all had a great time! 

A Low-key Cinderella Party

Princess Leah turned 3! She wanted a Cinderella cake, so I wanted to give her a Cinderella party. We decided to fore-go the big blowout birthday party this year for a few reasons. So, we just had family over for dinner, cake, and fun!

I didn't have a whole lot of time left when I decided I wanted to make a banner. I made this simple banner in about 45 minutes using my Cricut. If you can't see it, it just says, "Leah is 3!" I used 5" circles for the background, 4.5" circles for the patterned paper, and 4.5" letters. I used the Lyrical Letters cartridge for the font. It took 2 pieces of patterned 12x12 paper, 4 pieces of background paper (also used for letters), one spool of ribbon, and mini glue dots.

I ordered the balloons on Amazon in a pack and had them blown up at Kroger.  

For some simple decor, I spent a few minutes and dollars at Party City. I bought paper goods, blue and white streamers, blue tissue paper balls ( I know I can make my own, but I was short on time), and a princess crown for the birthday girl.

The food

A little off of the theme of Cinderella, we had a taco bar. It included all the fixins and soft and hard taco shells. I also included two appetizer dips (jalapeno popper dip from Pinterest and Texas Caviar), chips, rice, and beans. 

The Cake!

This was the inspiration for the party. I had many different ideas about how to make her a "Cinderella cake," but eventually saw the pumpkin coach and had to give it a try. I used a homemade funfetti cake recipe and traditional buttercream for the bottom layer. For the top layer, I just used a boxed mix, a coat of buttercream, and fondant. To shape the top layer, I bought a sphere-shaped pan from Michael's.

Since I am not a professional and don't have tons of experience, this cake was quite a labor of love. BUT the look on my precious daughter's face when she blew out her candles was worth every back-breaking second!