"Welcome Little Jelly Bean" Baby Shower

A Few Weeks ago I teased my followers on Facebook with this...   

And now I will REVEAL!!!

My best friend Toni and her husband Burton are expecting a baby boy this May!  I could not be MORE excited.  They are meant to be parents and I am so thrilled they get to partake in this blessing of life!

Toni is from England, and she is very humble and kind in a way that is hard to describe- maybe it's because she's from England, maybe not?!  Anyway, she was thinking all along that she was going to throw her own baby shower... UMMMM, NO!   It is their first baby and they wanted a co-ed shower to celebrate with all their friends and family.  Of course I told Toni as soon as I thought of it, that I'd be throwing her baby shower- she kept trying to tell me no, but I didn't let her.

It was the first baby shower I had the honor to throw, and I was EXCITED to start planning!  With the help of three of her other close friends, the theme of Jelly Bean developed. (Toni had been calling her little William growing inside her a "little jelly bean")

I had tons of fun making machine sewn banners with paint chips (of course got the idea from the Paint Chip Egg Garlands all over Pinterest).  I used my Shilhouette to cut the letters, my rounded corner punch to round the corners of the squares that didn't come that way and I hand cut all the Jelly Bean shapes.

To machine sew each tag together with the others I sewed them on top of wax paper and then just tore off the wax paper when we were ready to hang them!

We ended up with one REALLY LONG "Welcome Little Jelly Bean" and 3 just Jelly Bean Garlands.  The "Welcome" one I hung over our Treat Table, 1 Jelly Bean on a Entry Window, 1 over the Kitchen Window and 1 on the Mantel where the gifts would be.

I made the WILLIAM letters with finished wooden letters from Joann's.  Just spray painted them alternating in Blue, Orange and Brown and then I Modge Podged a coordinating paper on the fronts of the brown letters.  Toni wanted letters for Williams room, so I figured these would make a cute piece of decor for the shower that could then be a gift from us that she uses in his nursery.

For favors I used the containers that we use for Cedarbrook's Bath Salts and made a custom label for them to create a keepsake for Toni and Burton's Guests to fill with Jelly Beans and take them home with them!

I had a lot of fun making the apathocary style vases to house the Jelly Beans.  I intended for these to be their own separate blog post weeks ago when I made them, but when my phone crashed I lost my progress photos I had taken of them while they were being made.  But for those of you who are interested-

1.  I found 6 similar candle sticks at thrift stores.  
2. Primed and Painted them white (about 6 coats).  
3. Used E6000 glue and attached glass cylinders I found in sets of 3 at IKEA for $9! 

I used them for my Easter Decor before this baby shower and they were so cute with Easter Eggs.  I am excited to use them in the future with all sorts of fun things inside!

To fill each vase  it took almost all of the 15 lbs of Jelly Beans we ordered.  I found a great online source for Candy Bar Candy- Superior Nut Company had WONDERFUL customer service and I highly recommend them!

To incorporate the Tulips in the vases I found misc. cups that would fit inside the cylinder (but still allow room around the glass for Jelly Beans).  Filled them with water, then covered with Plastic Wrap (so the jelly beans wouldn't go in the water when I poured them in).  Put the tulips in the glasses pushing the stems through the plastic wrap, and then poured the jelly beans in the cylinders.   I made sure there was one vase that was just Jelly Beans in each color and placed a spoon in the top for guests to be able to fill their take away gifts!

You can see in this photo  that I used left over Paint Chips as signs to identify food for people so they didn't have to guess what things were.

 For the Dessert, Amber and her Mom made the yummiest and most adorable Jelly Bean Cake Pops (Once again, I AM NOT A BAKER- so I delegated this, and they did SOOO WELL!)  

Amber also did a Bath Tub Punch (click to find the wonderful blog the idea came from) which was very yummy and bright blue with floating bath duckies for Mr. William to enjoy later!

For food we decided on a Slider Bar, I didn't end up getting photos of the whole thing, but it was delish and looked pretty too!  My dear Kyle made 60 PERFECT Ranch Beef Sliders and I made Turkey, Spinach Feta as well!  

Water bottle labels were simply covered in coordinating paper, just to be cute.

Toni wasn't excited about her guests participating in and traditional baby shower games, so we just ate, drank, opened gifts and socialized.  I did however put together a keepsake book for William.  Each guest got to write "WISHES FOR WILLIAM" on a page of the book.  I found the page template here and just modified it to fit the size page I was using.

A good time was had by all, and I was honored to throw a party for such a good friend.  I could not have done it without Amber, Allie and the other Tracey- thank you ladies! (I wish we got a photo together, we didn't so a few of Toni and I will have to suffice- followed by some photos of guests enjoying themselves in the beautiful weather we had and of course I can't resist cute babies).

Thank you for looking, I hope you found some inspiration!

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