Baby Shower :: Birds & Bees Tea

Last March I got to meet my adorable niece but before her big debut, we got to celebrate her mom-to-be. My sister has the family nickname of “Bee” so a “Birds & Bees Tea” was a given when it came to choosing a theme.Us hosts (my mom, my sister-in-law Kelly, and I) knew we wanted to decorate with tons of birds, bees, and pennant flags so I incorporated all of those elements into the design of the invite.We wanted it to feel like you walked into Gramercy Tavern in New York (they always have the most amazing flowers) from the moment you walked through the door. The whole walkway (not pictured) up to the door was littered with potted tulips, azaleas, ranunculus, and other spring flowers. This was one of the biggest costs of the party but the great thing about buying potted plants as opposed to cut flowers is that you can plant them in your garden as soon as the party is over. Win win!We sewed birds & bees out of felt, whip-stitched them, put wire in their wings and hung them from fishing line both outside and throughout the house. The wreath was on sale after Easter years ago but it suited the theme perfect with those blue robin’s eggs. We set up the bar in the entry way and served blueberry, orange, and pomegranate mimosas, wine, lemonade, iced tea, and sparkling water. You can’t really tell but we put sheet moss all over the table so it looked like you were picking your drinks up from a grassy field. We hung more birds, bees, and pennant flags that my mom made with scraps of fabric throughout the house.The Bee (my sister Ellie) walked through the door and my mom threw a nest on her head. She owned it! Could she look any cuter? I do not think so!We hung more pennant flags throughout the house……and decorated every nook of the house with eggs, beehives, nests, birdhouses, and more flowers and moss.You may be thinking, “where the heck did they find all these things?” Well… first of all, whenever you can, repurpose things you already have. My mom had a ton of these decorations from her Easter displays over the years. She found the bee skeps at Tuesday Morning randomly but she had collected the birdhouses and Easter egg things over the years. Pretty much everything you’ll see on this blog is either from Home Goods, Tuesday Morning, or Marshalls and sometimes Cost Plus, Michael’s and JoAnn’s (but only if we have a coupon.) Also, borrow, borrow, borrow! Everyone likes to help a friend out so if you know someone who loves birdhouses, ask if you can borrow a few.The swirly branches on the mantle is just an unwound wreath from Michael’s. (This is also a great trick for a wine-tasting party. Just add fake grapes and you have a grape-vine.) The font used on the banner was purchased for $2.99 from TwoPeasInABucket. They have lots of cutesy fonts… pretty perfect when it comes to girly showers.My grandma was cleaning out her house and had two really old beat up brown bird cages that she didn’t want. We’ll take them! We spray-painted one green and one pink and put flowers inside. Easy.More from the shower…We played two ‘games’ that weren’t really games. (You’ll see recreations of these two games at just about every baby shower we throw.) The first one was an idea from the girls at lilSugar. I used to work for Sugar Inc. and the lil girls had me design PDFs for baby showers. I loved this idea of theirs so much that I keep recreating it. It’s a “Wishes for Baby” sheet and gives you prompts like “I hope you love ________.” and “I hope you learn__________.” Everyone fills one out for the baby-to-be and afterwards we bind it into a book for the mom to keep. It’s so sweet to see what the guests come up with and becomes a keepsake long after the shower is over.We also “diaper doodled” where you write messages on newborn diapers so that the mom will have something to laugh at at 2am when she’s changing diapers. I’ll post an example of this at a later date.
As far as food went, well this time we totally lucked out because my sister-in-law is pretty much a gourmet chef! She handled all of it and not only was everything delish, it was also so cute!It was an afternoon shower so the fare was light but totally yummy! Grape & goat cheese crostinis, deviled eggs, endive, blue cheese and walnut appetizers… plus loads of sweet things as well.I loved these bird nest cupcakes with jelly bean eggs and gum ball bird heads. I can take NO credit for anything on this table. It was adorable.And my mom, the cookie queen strikes again…She’s insane.A look out to the patio, clothesline strung & bird cage in place!Vintage tea cups that my mom has collected over the years were our vessels of choice. You can recreate this by borrowing mismatched tea cups from friends or scouring thrift shops. (I’ll say though, that the mimosa bar got a little more play than these pretty cups did!) As favors, we made white chocolate covered pretzels with colorful sprinkles and put them into cellophane bags.We capped the bags with the names of the guest. Underneath their name, we wrote what their name meant. I never knew my name meant “Frickin’ Awesome” so that was a nice surprise for me. (I kid. I kid.)More details…It was a beautiful shower for a beautiful girl. And as a quick aside, THANK YOU to all of you lovely, lovely people who are already following this blog. I am so excited about it and I am even more excited to have such insane support and love right out of the gates. This is going to be a fun ride and that’s thanks to you! More tomorrow!