Planning a Party?

First you need the date.  Once you pick a date, the fun part starts!

You need a theme!

If you want your invatations to match, you could say something like " Sweet treats and baby feet are on there way. Shh it's a surprise, we are showering ________ today!

You could have lollipop invitations, using real candy on them.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/42218981/personalized-invitations-oh-sweet-candy

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/madewithlovecardboutique/product/lollipop-party-birthday-invitations

When you think of theme, traditionally you think pink or blue. Not any more, you can get creative with your themes. Like polkadots, stripes, zoo animal , cupcakes, paisley, noahs ark. Once you have your theme, you can expand on it and choose your colors. Now if you want, you can choose your table cloths, silverware and decor' to coordinate with your theme/colors.

For example, if you do a lollipop theme, you could do stripe decorations and have a lollipop centerpiece for your tables, and give away candy lollipops as favors.

Favors and food

Now you need to think how or even if you want to coordinate your food/favors with your theme. Now if your theme is a tea party, you could wrap a tea bag with sugar cubes in tulle, tied with a bow and poem. Unless you are planning to have a dinner, to make it easier on the host, you may want to get a bunch of finger foods with a meal. Like a dip, brie and a lunchmeat platter. 

For the favors, it is always nice to give a small gift, like a cookie or even a 'thank you' poem for coming. A candy cake would be ideal too!

A great and economical favor is printing on your computer candy bar wrappers. All you need to get is sticker paper at staples or office depo, crop some pictures and select wording. Then you are set!

Games for a shower or kids party

You may or may not want to do a game. But it does make the shower a bit more interesting and helps your guests to interact so they do not become bored. You may want to do a game in between opening gifts. A couple games that are really fun are you ask everone to bring a baby picture of themselves and everyone needs to guess who they are, winner gets a prize. For a larger crowd, you could have the mommy, daddy, and there close relatives bring photos of themselves and let the other guest guess. Another idea is to have the host let each guest guess how many inches the pregnant mommys belly is around. To do this you need a roll of ribbon and you need to take it around to each guest with a ruler and let them guess how round the pregnant mommy is.

Set up several candyland stations for the kids to play.

Happy planning and I hope this inspires you to get creative with the shower or party you may be planning.

Copyright by Sara Groves

Updated 2011