Party: Chevron-Dot Baby Shower (Printables)

I have always loved hosting get-togethers and parties, and always loved cards and invitations, but I realized that it just may be that designing the party "printables" is filling the PowerPoint void left when I retired from my marketing career to stay home with my girls. At work PowerPoint always inspired me to spend more time than necessary designing and nudging and playing with motifs in my presentations, and a party takes this to a new level! So fun! A bit obsessive, but fun.

My favorite party is always my most recent, but I have to insist that this baby shower had a lot to love. First, we were celebrating a baby boy! Such a different vibe for this house of girls. I loved playing with the traditional blue color palette and giving it a more modern spin to fit the mother-to-be's aesthetic. It all started with this invitation. I gave into the popular chevron pattern but combined it with a stitched polka dot and dashed typeface.

And then there was the chevron chenille blanket as baby gift. I really love combining fabric and paper elements and it was an extra, small thrill to pull the theme through the gifts I made, including a swaddling blanket with a stitched polka dot garland.  I bought a bunch of extra chevron fabric to use as tablecloths and likely future chenille blankets!

And, the baby shower was a great excuse to put together a themed dessert table. I was smiling while my husband's eyes were rolling and he wondered aloud who I thought would eat all the sweets! It was eye candy as much as anything--and it tasted good too. (Tutorial for the polka-dot garland here.)

(Click to read the details).

The shower was a lunch for the ladies:

A green leaf salad tossed with apples, dried cherries, almonds, goat cheese and champagne dressing.

A Santa Rosa wild rice salad.

Still and sparkling water.

Rolls with orange butter.

And, one of my favorites, Orzo Salad with Chicken, Artichoke Hearts and Olives (recipe coming).

And for dessert:

Blueberry cupcakes with almond frosting.

(I love the fondant dots, which match the polka dot garlands I stitched for the tables, and the dotted cupcake wrappers.)

Macaroons. Lemon cream cake pops.

(Inspired by these and made, along with the cupcakes, by my friend and great-baker neighbor.)

Cream cheese whoopie pies (using my "underachiever" recipe and rolled in blue decorator's sugar).

And, as if that weren't enough sugar, I threw in some old-fashioned rock candy suckers, blue gummi bears, and blue-wrapped menthol chips. Hope that didn't just give you a headache!

Did I already pick my favorite thing? I may have used the word earlier, but my true favorite is the party favor:

Using this tutorial for covering composition books in patterned paper, I made a stack of mini books for the guests to take home (one also served double duty as a place to take notes about who gave what shower gift). I love how the patterns look all stacked together and was so happy the mother-to-be wanted to take home one of each--be my guest!

I also created this "wishes for baby" booklet for her to take home with a page filled in by each guest. I saw this one and rewrote the questions--some light and some more serious but all open to lots of different points of view. I think it's a great alternative to a shower "game" and would be fun to flip through years from now.

Here's a peek at the Chevron-Dot printables, available in my Etsy shop. They're 30% off for the month of January. Just enter the coupon code "INTRO30" (there is a place to "apply shop coupon code" in the shopping cart).

Now for the question. Should I do a spin on this in girl colors? I think it would be so fun in corals and pinks!