Tag Archives: baby shower

Paper Chains, Paper Roses, and a Sunny Day for a Baby Shower

Stef and Wrex are having a baby!

If they didn’t already both have great parents, we’d just legally adopt them.  Meanwhile, since their bio-fams are far away, we have scooped them up and just love the stuffing out of them.  It’s a match made in heaven.  So, sweet bebe Sawyer is due to arrive on 8.9.10, which is a very cool date and works for me, but if if she should decide to arrive earlier, say July 31 when Heaven Fest is happening?  I will have to miss HF for I am serving Stef and Wrex as their labor and delivery doula/keep-Wrex-in-line coach!  Oh yeah, baby!  I was pretty good at having babies myself and though there are three previous births I was supposed to coach people through, each time something would happen and I didn’t get to (medical or the out-of-town husband would make it back in time or whatever).  So this will be FUN! I hope I don’t end up needing Wrex to hold smelling salts under my nose and Stef to fan me while she is laboring.  I am pretty empathetic.  Haha.


  

We had a little waiting-with-great-anticipation-for-you-baby-girl-Phipps Shindig.

 

Tredessa (Stef and Dessa are tight!), Tara, Stephanie, Jovan, Stormie and me threw a little shower in Casree’s backyard not long ago.  The day was brilliantly sunny.  Which is what we ordered.  But exTREMEly windy, which we did not.  For you see, we had decided on PAPER decor.   We got together and gathered our zany-patterned scrapbook paper and big wads of brightly-colored tissue paper from another baby shower (recycle, people!!) and piles of paper the school was getting rid of and jars of old buttons and old pickle jars and some goldfish and glue sticks and bits and pieces of ribbons from previous projects. 

It was all about creating a colorful, vibrant, bright, engaging, fun, delightful afternoon for Stef and her beautiful friends and family, all of whom adore her wholly.  And the key words were: Lavish. Recycled. Reuse. Re-purpose.  And utilize dishes and serving utensils we already have! 

Pictures of the preparation~

     

  

   

Click on thumbnails for a closer look.

We cut circles and made pinwheels, by hand!

 

 

 

We created miles and miles of paper chains.  We made accordion-fan circles.  We created old-fashioned paper fans with pinwheels on them and fancy tags for all the treats and foods.  We used every bright color from the spring pallette, but zeroed in on orange and hot pink.  Goldfish swam in a bowl on the treats table, around the orange daisy stems, for they matched the decor.  Huge, fluffy tissue-paper flowers hung as garlands from posts.  Hot pink coffee-filter roses were woven vines ’round about.  No one knew, it is safe to say, they had once been white coffee filters.  We also grew some triticale (a wheat/rye-blend seed) for display purposes on the serving and buffet tables.

We ate, drank and made merry.

 

 

 

There was a triple-layer coconut cake made with love especially for mommy-to-be.  There were candies and sweets galore, lemon-poppyseed cupcakes filled with fresh lemon curd and topped with mounds of delicious cream cheese icing.  There were swedish meatballs and spinach-artichoke dip along with deli meats and cheeses.  Fruits artfully arranged on skewers and chocolate, of course, were there, too. All the girlies and me made the food. Bright-colored cookies on sticks were even more incredibly delicious that they looked!

We withstood tornado-force winds. A slight exaggeration, perhaps.

 

 

Seriously?  It was windy.  That was the one tiny, little thing that did not go our way.  Kinda messed up some backdrops and wreaked some havoc on having all-paper decor.  Had to go to Plan B (devised there on the spot), but it was still lovely because Stef is lovely and it was our chance to tell her so.  But the one thing that was nice about wind?  No sweat.  The wind kept us cool in spite of the heat and brilliant sun.

 

   

Thing that made me most happy at the end?

 

Mandy asked if she could have the decorations for her daughter’s upcoming birthday party.  Yes. Yes!  YES!  Recycled yet again, which I LOVE!  Because I am sort of becoming a greeniac.  {I may just have invented a new word again}  I kinda like that whole waste-not-want-not idea.  I am so happy Sawyer will see these pictures someday and know that the real value of the day, the place most of our energy was spent?  Was on the love for her parents, on our delight in the creating, all because she was going to soon arrive!

 

 

Etc.

   

   

The people.  Are the real decorations.  And everyone of us?  Love Stef and co.  Something to celebrate!

PICTURES:  Mostly by Stormie, but 5 or so by Mary!