Nursery Rhymes Baby Shower

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One of the fun things about getting to re-visit a seasonal theme is to see how we have changed in those two years. One major difference this time around is that babies are a much bigger part of our lives. Two of our best friends gave birth in January (plus Linz in June) and it has opened up a whole new world. With all of these babies around, Linz has had a chance to perfect her cake baking skills, we get to take on new craft projects, and our love of parties has a new outlet. Last winter, Linz and I teamed up with our other friend, Jessica, to throw Mariko a Nursery Rhyme Baby Shower.

I sadly knew I would not be there for the actual day, but wanted to contribute a little something before I headed out to Baltimore. Therefore, the summer before, I put together a ‘shower in a box’ to give other ladies a starting place. After searching the internet up and down for baby shower ideas, I got to work.

I first started by checking out the local thrift store and scored with a nursery rhyme book with lots of colorful pictures for only a couple of bucks. Mariko is an avid reader and makes amazing craft projects with paper so I thought she would really appreciate decorations in that vain. I also happened to own a duck paper punch back from when we had animals as our theme and figured duck were close enough to a mother goose for this endeavor. (riiiiiight?). I then hit up Michael’s for some pretty green and blue stock paper to compliment it all.

Book Page Garland

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I started by making a banner with the book pages, alternating between pictures and stories. Here’s a quick tutorial:

  1. Decide how large you want each triangle to be. Cut each page into the shape.
  2. Add 1/8 inch to your dimensions to make the colored triangles. Glue the book pages to the colored stock paper.
  3. To connect them all, punch holes in each top corner and thread a string or ribbon through OR simply tape them to a string.
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Miniature Storybooks
My next project was to make a smaller garland of miniature books to also hang as decorations:
  1. Cut out 4 x 7-inch covers out of colored cardstock.
  2. Using plain white paper or even pages from an old story book, cut out slightly smaller (3.5 x 6.5-inch) “pages”.
  3. Insert book pages into cover and sew along side so that book pages are now attached inside the colored paper. Fold paper outward a bit to create a more open look with the mini book.
  4. To create a garland, use mini close pins to string books along twine. They also make great labels for food you are serving, such as here:

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Decorative Toothpicks
Using my official Mother Goose paper punch I made decorative tooth picks for the food. I punched and punched parts of the pictures and words from the from nursery rhyme book and glued two of them together with a tooth pick in the middle.
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Confetti
I used up all the extra scrap paper I had to make Mother Goose confetti for the tables. Have you been counting how many projects I used from that one book? It was 4!
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Now I’ll pass this post over to Lindsey to fill you in on the shower’s activities activities and food!
~Jess
Fun and Games
Every baby shower needs some games, so Jess and I tag-teamed creating a few activities for the day. Jess found a free printable nursery rhyme quiz online and printed out copies for each attendee. There are a bunch of options out there; just Google “nursery rhyme quiz” and search through the images to find a good one.

Next, we had a passive game of guessing the lemon drops in a milk bottle.
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I used my new baby name book to create a matching game for names and their meanings. It was a tricky task, and created a lot of good discussion!
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Lastly, we put out a book of fairy tales and asked guests to write a note to the baby on the page of their favorite story. This is a lovely alternative to a guest book and creates a keepsake the baby can keep her whole life!mshower02
Nursery Rhyme Food
I had a lot of fun theme-ing out the snacks we would serve. It turns out that nursery rhymes and food go well together!
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 Even Momma-to-Be Mariko got in the nursery rhyme spirit and created thank-you gifts for each guest, featuring a nursery rhyme on her signature book-wrapped pencils (P.S. after a baby break, her Etsy shop is now open again!)

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Although it was a bummer not to have Jess present, all of the thought she put into this nursery rhyme-themed baby shower made it extra special. It opened my eyes to how much fun themed parties can be when applied to the world of motherhood/babies/kids, which I guess we are now a part of. Plus, it was lots of fun to “shower” Momma Mariko with gifts!
~Linz

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