Desperate Need of Ideas and Opinions for Nieces Baby Shower!!

My mom and sister did a Tea Party baby shower for me. It was easy and cheap. Tea is cheap and you can make little finger sandwiches, scones and or biscotti. Tea Time is not a meal time so nobody will be expecting a meal. Also, for games you can search on the internet and find millions. One of the best ones I have seen is dividing the guests up into teams have each team decide on a "baby" then the other team members have to use toilet paper to "dress" the "baby". The mother to be wpicks the winner - this game is so fun and has so much good feedback! Also, if you can find decorations at a lot of dollar stores aroung the area. If you need more advice or some more specifics feel free to let me know. But really there are A MILLION games on the internet! Good luck and have fun with it, it does not have to be expensive to be a VERY NICE shower!

I'm throwing a baby shower this weekend for a very good friend of mine because no one else is going to. Both mothers are coming to my shower and are not having one of their own. My husband and I don't have a lot of money, so this is the best I can do on a budget. I decided to have a desert shower. She invited 35 people, but only 18 are coming (so remember a number of them won't come, more so for a baby shower than a wedding shower, don't know why). So, I contacted a couple of the people that were invited that I knew well and asked them to please make one desert, that my baking skills were limited and that would really help. Someone is bringing a plate of brownies, someone is bringing baked brie, I'm making chocolate delight (very easy and cheap) then I ordered a cake for $16 from Kroger (they are great). I went to the store and bought a watermelon, cantelope, a bunch of bananas and some apples. Then instead of a fruit tray to buy, I am cutting it up (any leftovers will last longer and my husband and kid will eat them). I also had in the house some chocolate chips, semi-sweet and white, so I'm going to melt them for "fondue" for the fruit (just as something extra). I bought generic 2-liter bottles of soda (for this many I bought 1 regular, 1 diet and 2 7-up type. The 2nd clear one I'm going to add to sherbet for that punch you always see. I think total the groceries cost me about $50. For favors, I got $1 lottery tickets and attached a little saying I found to them with blue ribbon. The saying said something like, we're so lucky to be having this baby, hope we can bring you luck too. If you're interested let me know and I can give you the exact phrase. Then we're playing a couple of games for fun, no prizes. I'm also not doing paper products, I'm getting out our normal dishes and stacking them, then all I need to pay for is a dishwasher tablet to run one extra load, though it's more work. I didn't tell her I was doing this on a budget, but she loves the ideas and is really excited. I've done this shower once before and everyone thought it was great, no one noticed the lack of expense!! Good luck and if you want any of the recipes or sayings, just drop me a line!!

K., how sweet of you to do this. First off, no matter what you do, it's wonderful of you to step up and organize something for the new mom. I have been to, and thrown, many showers over the years for firstime & second time mothers. If you want to keep the cost low, you can do a ladies' tea in the afternoon (say, from 2-4pm) and serve lemonade and a few different teas, and have cookies, scones and fruit (you can go further and do tea sandwiches and a quiches too, but on a non-mealtime slot, it doesn't have to be a big affair.) People will offer to bring something (especially if there are 30 invited), and don't be shy at taking up their offers. Or, you can do even just drinks and a cake....I once went to a party at a pretty park and it was very lovely, perhaps one of the nicest I went to because of the locale, and that's all she served and it was fine. Or, ever popluar potluck! Even just one that serves appetizers and desserts would be nice.

Location ideas- your home (believe me, people will sit on the floor even if you had enough chairs), a park pavillion (make sure you have something that's covered, in case it's raining), a church hall, a botanical garden, a community center room, be creative! Or, if someone offers up their house to host, that can be their gift.

As far as a gift, you are throwing the party and that is a generous gift. You may very well be giving her a gift when the baby is born as well, right? If you have flowers or even balloons at the event, you can give her those as a takehome gift, plus whatever leftovers you may have.

Good luck!

Can you co-host the shower with other people? That way the cost and responsibilities can be spread out....and someone else may have a home to accommodate her larger party (not all 30 will come). You seem to have A LOT going on over the summer, can you push the shower to mid/late Sept? Typically it is thrown 4-6 weeks before due date anyway. You could host it from 3-5, so only appetizers and cake could be served, decreasing the cost. Games do not have to cost a lot...one party I went to we played 100,000 pyramid....two teams and the winning team members each got a flower. You could have each guest fill out guess cards on name, gender, birth date, length, weight, and motherly advice. She could randomly select, read it aloud, then open that person's gift. That owuld take the whole 2 hours alone.

Hi K., something that is pretty inexpensive, especially if you get it here and there is a diaper cake. They are usually a big hit and easy to do. If you have any questions just contact me. All you need to do is roll diapers and form a tiered cake and put little goodies inside like socks, bottles, toys, etc. Also, for games some easy ones are to get toilet paper and see who can get the closest to the belly size. Another fun one is to guess baby food. Let people taste it and guess. The $1 section at Target always has some good finds for favors also the Dollar Tree is great for something like that.

Ask her who her two or three best friends are and enlist them to help!! Doing a shower for 30 all on your own is to much to ask. If she has 30 people close enough to her to invite, then some of them have to be close enough friends to help out. Keep it simple with finger foods and desserts, then put on half the invitations "please bring an appitizer to share" or "please bring a dessert to share", that way you take care of the drinks, decorations and plates, ect.... And between now and August you can pick up all those things a little at a time so the cost is not to large all at once.
And if you are throwing (ie PAYING for) most of the shower by yourself, than THAT is your big gift! Maybe give a photo album as a gift and let her know you will fill it with pictures of the shower as a memento.
Please don't let others expectations get you into debt! Ask for help even if you do not know her freinds well.
Best of luck!!
K.

Hi there...

I say as long as its nice, you could have it outside. Everyone could sit on blankets except for mommy (give her a nice chair). I agree with everyone else on the food... potluck or just have finger foods. You can get great decorations at the dollar store or check out digital scrapbooking websites... they have invitations, goodie bags, cupcake wrappers, etc that you just print from your computer and the prices are really good. (contact me if you are interested in finding some of the digital scrapbooking sites for the above). Just because its a shower doesnt mean that it has to be the expensive of a wedding ... The best part of the shower should be the friends and family coming to celebrate the birth of a new baby... always keep that in mind and it will come together perfectly.

Potluck! That's to many people for a shower and not have it at a hall or outside place. Prhaps it can be split up into two showers- close family, and then for friends. There is so much time between then and now. Send a polite letter (or ask around) out to all saying you want to have a shower and its turning into the party of the century-yeah! and does any one have suggestions of a place to host it. Chances are someone will have a friend , mom, uncle-whatever, who has a bar or restarunt or access to a community or church hall. Don't stress!

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30 people is not a lot of people for a baby shower even if you dont have enough seats. some people can sit on the floor! At my baby shower I had Tuna salad, meatballs, greens and fried & bbq chicken and a cake! We all had a great time. I found games of the internet and i bought the prizes from the dollar store! You dont have to go above and beyond for a baby shower. Its all about fun and the celebration of a baby. Don't stress yourself out!

K., visit your local Dollar Tree. You will find shower favors, balloons, paper products,table clothes and many other items for the baby shower at $1 each. This will amount to a substantial savings. You will also find items for your sons birthday party. Please don't spend $4 for a pack of plates at a party store when you could save that $3.
Good Luck!! Things will turn out fine.

Hi K.,
I've hosted several showers. The last one for my SIL was in the meeting room at our church. Since we were members the room was free. We've also had parties at her Community Pool house. I think it was $50 to rent the room. I've also seen parties at Golden Corral, Old Country Buffet and the like. For the church and pool room, we bought cake from the store and a few sandwich platters. For drinks we did the sherbet/gingerale punch.

As for an appropriate present, it depends on how close you are. I usually do a small gift at the shower - bottles, onesies, or diapers - since she'll have lots of other peoples gifts to open. I once took my large bag of goodies - little things that I think every Mom should have - and people started making comments about 'was this still the same gift?'. So now I make it something simple and do the bigger gift in private, afterward or a bit closer to the due date.
M.

You could have the party as one where the guests bring a dish or a finger food and maybe have it at a park or something like that.

hello K.
wow thats alot on your plate good luck
not sure about all your questions but I did go to a shower and they had an awesome idea.. it may be cheap depending where you purchase the supplies.. they had a bunch of diffrent onesies ( blues, yellows, greens, pinks) they also had all diffrent kinds of iron on fabrics, fabric paint and then the guests would come and cut out diffrent shapes and things with those fabrics and make a onesie for the baby to be.. they had an iron on so it was super easy!! just a fun idea
good luck

You can also do a google search for games online - I know one that we did at my co-worker's was to have everyone take a piece of yarn and try to guess how big the expectant mother's stomach is...it's a lot of fun and some people are way off! Then she would give a little basket of mini lotions to the winner...things like that are fairly cheap at Wal-mart - and yarn is super cheap. You can even use streamers or something instead. There are tons of other games that just use pencil and paper - like writing down as many baby names for each letter of the alphabet as you can...etc. If you are a member of CostCo or something like that, you can buy bulk appetizers like mini quiches, etc for food and it is fairly inexpensive as well....have fun and let us know how it goes!