A lovely co-worker of mine is having her baby soon and we wanted to do something fun for her!  Our goal was to have something low-key and not super awkward since it was during work hours and we work with mostly men 🙂

If you have read any of my posts before, you know that a key to planning for me is advance prep…unfortunately life happened and I didn’t start prepping for this party until 8:00pm the night before (oops) but by keeping the recipes simple, having great co-planners, and indulging in a glass of wine/real housewives while I cooked/crafted I was able to pull it off!

See below decor, food, and games – it turned out super cute and mom/baby were pleased 🙂

The Decor:

The party was hosted on a Friday afternoon in a conference room at work.  Despite being at work, we still wanted it to feel like a baby shower.  The conference room was huge so I was nervous about any decorations getting lost, but by creating a few focal points we were able to dress it up!

The main focal point of the room was the food table (I mean everyone loves food so that makes sense right?!).  I found the pomander tissue “shower” idea on Pinterest and had been wanting to try it for awhile!  I have always bought tissue pomanders at Michael’s/Target and never again – I used a tutorial similar to this and it took literally minutes to make each one.  I will admit the “rain drops” took some time – I used paper and string I had at home and cut the paper into tear drops then hot-glued to the string and taped behind the pomanders (and the good news is these can be re-used)!

I purchased a white plastic table cloth at Target and found the banner there as well (why make it when you can buy it?!).  I’ve also found that you can’t underestimate how helpful serving-ware can be in creating a mood for your party.  Although the food would have tasted fine coming out of random tupperware, it just looks so much better when it all matches and there are different levels.  Conveniently for me I got married two years ago any my sister is a registering expert so I have a ton of white platters, bowls, etc.!

Another “food table trick” of mine is to add a cute place for people to keep track of their drinks on the cups.  I used the same paper as the “rain drops” and cut-out little hearts, then hot-glued them to plastic champagne cups.  Adds a pop of color and a little detail!

The next focal point was the gift/game table.  It is amazing what a flower bouquet from Target and a homemade sign can do to a conference room table!

Finally (although the pictures aren’t great) we added streamers and a gold “F” in front of the chair the mom-to-be was sitting to draw the attention to her!  These tissue streamers were also purchased from Target and I use them for many of my parties!

The Menu:

Baby shower food is some of my favorite, because it can be so whimsical and sweet.  Since this was an afternoon party I kept the food pretty “snacky” with representation from both the salty and sweet sides:

• “Dunkaroo” Dip: This is one of the first recipes I ever “pinned” and I’m not sure why I haven’t made it lately.  Anyone who was born in the late ’80’s knows how exciting it was when you opened-up your lunch to find the amazing frosting/cookie snack that was a Dunkaroo (and if you don’t you missed out – blame your parents).  This dip tastes just like Dunkaroos and is super easy to make!

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups vanilla Greek yogurt
• 2 Cups light cool whip
• 1 Box funfetti cake mix
• Graham crackers or vanilla wafers

Combine the yogurt, cool whip, and cake mix and serve with cookies/crackers of your choice!

• Pineapple Raspberry Punch

Combine 2 liters of lemon/lime soda, one gallon of pineapple juice, and one container of frozen strawberry lemonade for this awesome punch!

• Chocolate covered strawberries and Chocolate Mousse Cups

I used to think making chocolate covered strawberries was such a pain, but I dipped two cartons of strawberries in white almond bark in less than 15 minutes – this may be a new go-to treat!

For the mousse cups I used the pre-cooked Phyllo shells and filled them with a made-up chocolate mousse that turned-out really good!

I mixed 4 ounces cream cheese, one small box sugar free instant chocolate pudding mix, and 2 cups light cool whip.  Then I added some vanilla almond milk to help the consistency.  I brought the filling in a bag and filled the cups right before the party so they wouldn’t get soggy.  I will admit that I could have filled them better, they looked like poop in a cup, but they were SUPER tasty (and I may or may not have continued to eat the left-over filling with the left-over vanilla wafers all week)!

• Mini Meat and Cheese Kabobs with Crackers

Simply cut summer sausage and crackers into cubes, skewer on toothpicks, and serve with crackers!

• Popcorn and Sugar Cookies

So I had all intentions of making my grandma’s famous cookie recipe (remember this one?) but I just ran out of time so I went with the still cute and yummy store-bought sugar cookies!

The menu was getting more sweet than salty, so I added 3 types of popcorn with the “she is about to pop” theme – one cheddar, one caramel, and one kettle corn.

The Games:

Planning games has always been my least favorite part of hosting for some reason, so I’m thankful my co-worker Lindsay took over!  As mentioned we work with mostly men, so something super cheesy was out of the question.  We opted for one hands-on game and two passive games so people didn’t feel obligated to participate in everything.  Here they are:

• Celebrity Baby Game: this was our “active game” where we gave everyone two minutes to fill-out this printable form identifying which baby belongs to which celebrities
• Mad Libs: We passed around a baby-advice themed mad libs that the mom-to-be read at the end and was pretty amusing!

• Diaper Advice: Finally we went with the classic diaper advice game – where we set-out diapers and people could write words of encouragement or wisdom for those late-night changes!

It was a fun shower and the mom-to-be was happy which was the goal!

Cheers!