Tenley’s Baby Shower {In Pictures}

My precious niece will be here in less than 5 weeks and I might be just the TEENIEST bit excited about her arrival. (She needs to be patient and wait a few more weeks vs. trying to come early like she thought about last week. By the end of May, we’ll all be ready for you, Tenley Mae!) I got the honor of hosting her very first baby shower, to celebrate her upcoming arrival with Amy, our family, friends of the Christianson family and Amy’s close friends.

The theme of the baby shower was “Our Greatest Adventure” and all of the decor was travel-themed because Amy and Britt love to travel. Tenley’s nursery is also travel-themed, so a lot of the baby shower decor could also double as nursery decor, if Amy wanted to keep it. We used maps in the decorations and party favors. We used globes and vintage suitcases as part of the decor. I think it turned out amazing! I definitely could not have pulled it off without the help of Amy’s friend, Brandy. She made food for the shower (including the most amazing homemade cheesecake!) and arrived hours early with globes and vintage suitcases to help set up everything and get the food ready with me. Amy’s sister-in-law Carmen and my mother-in-law Marcia also helped with the food. It took a village to get everything ready, but I love how everything came together. We worked so hard and got so many compliments on how beautiful it was that I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures from the shower with you!

I loved the shower invitations! I bought them on Etsy from @madewithlovebyalesha and I bought the brown envelopes at Hobby Lobby. The invitation printable came with this awesome book request. Since Amy is a first grade teacher, she’s big into children’s books (aren’t we all?!) and did not have many baby board books for Tenley yet. We found a great way to add to Tenley’s library– she got SO many great books at the baby shower!

Amy actually made that burlap wreath for the twins’ first birthday party and we repurposed it for Tenley’s baby shower. Amy made the big teal bow (ribbon from Hobby Lobby) and I made the T using mod podge, a wooden T and a map of Tennessee!

We had the “guest book” set up outside the front door. We had everyone add their fingerprint to the hot air balloon print (below) to be framed in Tenley’s nursery. I bought the print on Etsy from @PTWatersDesigns. Amy’s dad printed all of the invitations, games and this print for me. The ink pads in our shower colors came from Hobby Lobby. I love how the balloon turned out, with all those fingerprints… even Eli and Emry Jane have tiny fingerprints on there!

I bought these paper “pillow boxes” on eBay as our party favor for the baby shower. I added hand-cut map hearts and Tenley’s monogram. I filled the boxes with pastel peanut M&Ms (gotta love half price, pastel candy after Easter!) and tied them closed with teal baker’s twine.

I am not sure what my favorite part of Tenley’s shower decor would be, if you asked, but this banner is really high on the list! It was a labor of love — cutting out all those pieces and letters, then mod podging them all together. The banner is made from navy and burlap cardstock and maps. All the map pieces were backed with cream cardstock. Amy hung the banner for me with twine and Brandy provided the luggage, globe and trunk to display with it. We used the little trunk to store the board books that Tenley got from the shower (and also that adorable monogrammed lovey and handmade lace-embellished shoes.)

 Our baby shower games came from @ErinCrouchStudio on Etsy. The “Baby Shower Bingo” was custom made to fit our travel-theme. Amy’s dad printed these too. The baby predictions were a lot of fun– I wonder who will be the closest for birth day, weight and length of labor! Britt, Amy’s husband, says that whoever gets the most right gets a gift card from them! Side note: we didn’t make the hydrangea arrangement for the shower. Amy is super crafty and her house decor is absolutely adorable, it’s perfect for hosting a party!

Tenley needed to benefit from all my Etsy purchases, right?! (Good thing, Amy is my husband’s sister, and this is also HIS first niece, or I might have heard some complaining about my spending, haha.) It was adventure and world/travel-themed, so I bought Tenley these two onesies. “Adventure Awaits” by @BenoirDesigns and “Hello World, I’m Tenley” by @ThisOnePlace. As long as Tenley holds off a few weeks on making her arrival, I think one of those onesies will be what she comes home in 🙂 The Tenley banner was made very similarly to the other one– navy cardstock and maps on cream cardstock. It’s now hanging in Tenley’s nursery. I cannot take any credit for the adorable shutters and window. Those are just other examples of Amy’s awesome decorative style!

The food tables were a big collaboration! I wanted the food to be “worldly” to fit our theme, so Brandy and I came up with different dishes that could represent different places around the world. Carmen, Amy’s sister-in-law, made an awesome Guam noodle dish for the shower. Brandy made (American) BBQ sandwiches, German sausage, homemade cheesecake, cupcakes with map liners AND globe cake pops! (Oh, how I wish that I could cook like her. She’s an amazing cook.) Marcia, my mother-in-law, made Mexican taco dip and provided the drinks for the shower. Tommy, my husband, was supposed to make the Chinese General Tso chicken, but he had to stay home with our oldest son for baseball, so we bought it from Amy’s favorite chinese food restaurant. I made a Greek salad, “Haitian” fruit kabobs and bought Italian meat and cheese slices from Costco. The square and polka dot aqua plates came from Party City.

The twins were great helpers when it came to opening all of the presents, especially since Mommy was busy writing down all the gifts and they were left to their own devices 🙂  The twins were great entertainment for everyone watching Amy open gifts! Eli had a great time pulling out all the tissue paper and then shredding it. He wanted to make sure there were tiny pieces of tissue all over the floor for us to pick up later! Emry Jane claimed every book as her own. She also really liked Tenley’s super soft, new blanket and playing with Amy’s other niece, Lacy.

In addition to hosting the baby shower, Amy also asked me to take her maternity pictures while I was in town last weekend. I was very nervous about it, but I am really excited about how they turned out. I have to share a couple of my favorites with you!! Amy must have liked them too because they are already printed and FRAMED in her house!

 

A ‘back of the camera’ shot of my very favorite maternity picture 🙂 Amy has the original on her camera.

 

We added one of my baby shower creations, Tenley’s banner, and her “Hello World I’m Tenley” onesie to the maternity photo shoot and I LOVE how those photos turned out, especially the one with Amy and Britt both holding the banner and Amy holding the onesie on her belly (see framed pictures below!)