Getting the Pink Out

After years of living with my husband and two sons in a world of blue, I recently had the perfect excuse to get the PINK out of my system. My beautiful friend, Ena, is expecting her first baby AND... it will be a GIRL!!! Last Saturday I joined some ladies in throwing Ena a baby shower, and thought I would share some of our ideas.  If you like them, use them!

DECORATIONS:
Since Ena is Japanese, everyone is thirsty for spring, and she's having a GIRL- we chose a theme of "Cherry Blossoms"~ shades of pink & brown
GAMES:
1. Address Raffle:  Guests filled out an envelope with their address and placed it in a basket for a handful of raffles drawn by Ena throughout the shower.  The envelopes will hopefully make writing thank-yous an easy task for our Mommy-to-Be. :-)
2. The Big Momma Purse Game:  Guests gather in teams of 2-3 at their table for a purse scavenger hunt.
3. Pregnant with Anticipation Estimation:  Guests pass around balls of yarn and cut an estimated circumference of Ena's belly.  When I read about this game, it was reccomended that you ask the mother-to-be if she is comfortable with people guessing her waistline.  I was pretty sure I knew Ena well enough to know that she is a very open person, but I asked her anyway.  She responded by telling me if I wanted, people could guess the circumference of her growing bustline as well.  Ahh, Ena. I love you!
Oh, and of course we gave away lots of prizes!
FOOD: I had nothing to do with the food, but I feel like I should include this since it's pretty essential to any social event. The two other ladies in charge of that did an incredible job; punch, cherry tarts, meatballs, veggie tray, hummus dip w/pita chips... and a beautiful cake!

Most importantly, everyone seemed to relax and enjoy themselves and Ena recieved many generous gifts to prepare her for the adventure that awaits!
 

~Some old peg board in our attic + paint = some direction for our guests~

~My mom made these chocolate-filled  favors for all 30 guests~

~I found these  paper lanterns at Target (pack of 10 for $20).  I didn't attach them to the strung lights, but hung each lantern from a string.  I thought about decoupaging tissue paper flowers to the lanterns, but decided to keep it simple.

The tissue paper flowers on the right were the center-pieces. A bit time-consuming, but definitely low-cost!  I found some dainty branches~these are fallen dogwood branches (no trees were harmed in the making of these centerpieces!)  Any delicate fruit-bearing branches work well.  Then I cut out five-petal origami flowers from a few shades of pink tissue paper.  I poked them unto the ends of the branches and pinched the base of the flower with craft glue, stuck them in my drinking glasses and *WHA-LA*~

~Ena's sister-in-law made this beautiful fondant cherry blossom cake to go with our theme~

~This was made by folding layers of tissue paper accordian-style, rounding the edges.  A bobby pin was in the center to hold it together, and then the layers were fluffed up.  I love the idea of combining two of them together to make a pom-pom to hang~

~I wanted to attach a PDF file but couldn't figure it out, so here's the game in case anyone wants to use it! I folded the paper in half and rounded the corners and tried and make it look like a little purse...that's why it's cut like that!~