What a great joy to be able to share with you more details of our very own classic boy baby shower!
All the gorgeous images were captured by the incredibly talented photographer Liza of Liza Voll Photography. She absolutely blew me away this time!!!!
It was a tremendous honor to have it debut on Layla Grayce, as they made the post more beautiful than I imagined!
Here is my chance to share with you a few more images, personal thoughts and designer details from this precious, personal event. If you are looking for a clear and concise vendor guide, a number of personal tips from this shower, I highly recommend you visit Layla Grayce for my post there which offers all these wonderful things.
If you are up for a lengthy, ultra-personal narration, then grab a comfy seat, pour a cup of tea, and enjoy!
Prepare for lots of gushing about the amazing women who created so many of the beautiful sweets and decorations you see here.
With a passion for designing events, it was a tremendous joy and pleasure to work on designing our baby shower (though I am well-aware this goes against all etiquette!).
It was also, however, a wonderful opportunity to learn the power of party partners! I typically work alone and struggle with allowing myself to share my work with others, but knew I would physically need a lot of help, and more than that, I wanted to explore something new for me: share the joy of the party designing, setting up, hosting/executing, and clean up/break down process with others passionate for parties. WOW. It is a far more rewarding experience than I EVER imagined.
I reached out many months in advance to find highly motivated, organized, talented, creative women in the party industry (not necessarily professionals) and was blessed to hear from two most perfect co-designers I *ever* could have asked for: Jenny of Crossing The Bugger Dixon Line, and Christy of Inspired Design.
Jenny is one of the warmest, sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful, gracious and lovely women I have had the privilege of meeting. I was instantly drawn in to her with that sparkling smile and a gentle disposition that put me right at ease. Jenny came a long distance for this event, and did a stunning job as a co-designer of our baby shower. Her creativity is highly underrated.
I gave her some challenges and she exceeded all expectations, such as creating the most darling guestbook alternative: signing wooden baby blocks for our baby-to-be. What a precious idea that I must say was an enormous hit at the shower!
I have a feeling we will see a lot more creative brilliance come from Jenny, she is just wired that way, and is full of passion for party design. If you don't know Jenny, I recommend you get to know her--a true gem and enormous blessing in my life. I cannot wait for us to get together again. She also shares my passion for writing, and has a fabulous blog. Jenny has some wonderful projects lined up, and I look forward to watching her children's party dreams come true.
Christy is practically around the corner from me, and when she drove up to the shower set up with the most incredible party tool kit you could ever DREAM of, I couldn't stop thinking "Where have you been all my life? How do people not know you?"
Christy, much like Jenny, instantly gave me a sense of comfort, with a thousand watt smile and a rare passion: not only does she love to design events, but she thrives on the execution of them. In addition, she is an all-star crafter who has more skills in that brilliant mind of hers than I could ever wish to have. Her attitude is positive and motivated, willing to make rice krispie treats late the night before the shower at my last-minute request, as well as assembling that most precious edible cake banner without sweating one bit (I was a disaster just looking at it). She did it quickly, calmly, and perfectly.
I tried to pry myself away a teensy bit and open up the dessert table set up to Jenny & Christy, and they did a fabulous job. Christy thought of displaying the edible fondant-covered rice krispie baby blocks across the front center of the table, using charming cupcake stands for height of the back row. BRILLIANT. Christy is one to know, one to follow, she has much to offer. She has a pretty incredible project lined up and I cannot wait for her to share more about it with us.
In addition to these amazing designers, I also had the tremendous honor and privilege of working with the most talented designers and crafters, who donated so much of their time and talent to creating custom and purely perfect treats for our special celebration.
Holly of Holly's Sweet Hobby is a true artist far more talented than she is aware of. I am in absolute awe of her work, and the moment the fondant covered rice krispie treat baby blocks, the gum paste baby blue and white saddle oxford shoe cookies, and the fondant smocked romper cookies arrived it took me several moments to pick my jaw up off the floor. Oh. My. Goodness. TALENT. BEAUTY. SWEETNESS. And the most perfect attention to detail and colors. I adore Holly and her work, and hop you find her work incredibly inspiring as I have. Thank you, Holly!
Lynlee of Lynlee's Petite Cakes created the most spectacular fondant diaper bags (designed after my very own from Petunia Pickle Bottom) that made me think "MAGAZINE COVER!" the moment I saw my first preview. She truly has an attention to detail that sets her apart from other artists in her field. She is also a sheer delight to work with, something important as a designer when selecting vendors to collaborate with. She also crafted the perfect pacifier cupcake toppers for the shower as well. P-R-E-C-I-O-U-S. Thank you Lynlee!!!
Tara of Bambella Cookie Boutique is one of the newer cookie designers I had the pleasure of working with, yet her talent displays as someone who has been in the industry for years. She has a style that is so unique--the very shape of her cookies, the detail in the silver baby cup and rattle cookies, the sweetest little lamb and that perfect cookie design of the Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag...Tara is a big talent and it was a treasure for me to work with her and see her work displayed so beautifully on the shower dessert table.
Crazy About Macarons was such a treasure to work with--she took what I envisioned and created it into a light sweet reality--macaron rattles!!! These were highly popular at the shower, and I know why--they make your mouth water just looking at them! So creative and darling, I loved the sweetness they added to the shower.
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Julie of Cakes and Kids crafted the sweetest petite baby buttons and bottles that had everyone taking a second look. She used the most beautiful soft colors, and sized them just right for the petite fours and mini cupcakes we placed them on. These two charming edible dessert toppers were PERFECT for our classic baby shower, and Julie hit it out of the park with her spectacular attention to detail and eye for design. WOW!
Now I have run out of photos but NOT out of designers and artists to gush about....so please read on!!!
Brittany of Edible Details is an artist that I ADORE working with, and she always blows me away with her work. She created the fondant swirled lollipops for the Nutcracker Suite Ballet {Signature Party} in 2010, and the precious duckling cake topper for our Baby Gender Reveal Party. Now, she wowed me again, this time with STUNNING initial (hand iced letters to match the font of the printed details of the party--talk about a steady hand!) cupcake toppers as well as the cake banner spelling out "BABY" (edible, yes!) we strung along the front of the cake. The level of detail, the desire to create perfection is something standard with Brittany. She is as sweet as her treats and she MADE the dessert table stunning with her edible details.
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Pam Smerker is one of the kindest, most genuine creative women I have ever met. She creates the sweetest, most well-crafted (as in YES THEY ARE HIGH-QUALITY CARDSTOCK SO THEY ACTUALLY HOLD SWEETS!) favor boxes, and the gingham and pinstripe ones she made for my shower were utter perfection. They looked just DARLING with the rosette favor tags from Loralee Lewis. I could go on and on about Pam and her sweetness as a blogger AND artist. Thank you Pam for sharing your creativity and talent with us all!
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Some of you have written me about that wreath--ah, yes, that GORGEOUS fabric wreath!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The lovely talent behind {She's Kinda Crafty} took this crazy idea I had of doing a fabric wreath instead of a ribbon one, and she used her brilliant vision and talent to whip up a beauty to behold. The finest textured fabrics, incredible fullness and her eye for detail made the wreath perfect on the front door. And now, it hangs proudly on the door to our sweet baby Noah's nursery, and I have swapped out the ribbon color for the holidays (like a luscious red for Christmas). I think it is very rare for someone to describe a lofty idea to you and be able to digest, process and turn it into an elegant reality. Her work is truly beautiful, I am honored to own a little piece of her talent.
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And now I simply must take a moment to gush about the infamous Loralee Lewis, designer of all the printed details of the event (from invitations to rosette favor box tags; dessert signs to water bottle labels and straw flags). Loralee is a standout in design, with a sophisticated style and appreciation of all things classic and vintage. I adore her collections for showers, birthday parties and holiday events, and must say that the birth announcement and holiday photo card she created for us is the most beautiful design I ever set eyes on. Loralee and her team use the finest inks, papers, ribbons, and take tremendous pride in the presentation of their work. It is a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with Loralee three times now, and cannot wait for our collaborative projects lined up. {PS--Loralee has been discovered by many celebrities, including Hollywood A-Listers, so I am enjoying every moment I can work with her until she is too busy with celebrity soirees...} Loralee is one in a million, and if you haven't seen her invitation and graphic designs, just wait until you see her event styling--Oh My (gasp)!!!
A special thank you to Carolyn of Sweet Tea & Linen for the gorgeous gathered floor-length white tabledress, and for the drool-worthy custom drapes and shams for Noah's Nursery (cannot wait to share images one of these days....).
Also a very special hug of gratitude to Nancy of A to Z Celebrations who created the pom-pom trimmed white table topper for the gift table, also used for our Gender Reveal Party. Your work is FABULOUS and it added such charm to both events!
I must thank my dear husband Ryan and mom for their tremendous help in making the backdrop for the dessert table (a white diamond quilted Restoration Hardware shower curtain wrapped around a board, lined with batting, and trimmed with double-faced satin ribbon and upholstery pins. This as a fun project we created, and makes a darling piece of wall art in Noah's nursery to display photos, cards and other mementos... (oh, and thank you Julia & Brian for creating a last-minute baby game that was so much fun!)
Thank you designers, artists, friends and family for all working together on this very special, personal event. It was nothing short of spectacular. I never imagined something more precious, intimate and perfect.
I realize I need to insert all the important links into this post to each designer's site, but I am too gosh darn excited to post it I am going to come back and update this post with the proper links soon. And don't forget you can get the link list from the Layla Grayce post here in the meantime.
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