a circus baby shower

one thing i know is that i have great friends.

currently, 2 of my besties, erin & jr,  are pregnant with little boys.  

this last week was very exciting.  erin (and her adorable & sassy little girl, emelyne) came and stayed at our house for the week while we planned a baby shower for jr on saturday.  

fun week.  and an even more fun shower, if i do say so :)

erin showed up on monday having already purchased a few items.  we had emailed a few ideas back and forth, but since we had been so busy decided to just do the bulk of the prep once she arrived.  

she had bought some fabulous colored paper balls & circles.  this rainbow one in particular was just awesome.  it became our inspiration....

i do much better with a theme.  i love the order of it.  the match-y-ness of it.  so after looking at all these brightly hued paper goods, it came to us.  CIRCUS shower!  so fun!  so different!  

i remembered a circus party from one of my favorite party blogs one charming party.  

they made this amazing cake that i logged away in my brain as a must-make someday.  we immediately began planning.  i am pleased to show you the results.

erin.... it was so fun to throw a party with you!  you are a creative, crafty genius.  love you, friend.

we started by planning the food table.  the most important thing, right?  the shower was at 2pm, so we could get away with snacks rather than a meal. so we decided to go for circus food!

we needed a backdrop for our table, so we found some tutorials online to create a "big top" out of a dollar tree tablecloth, some white butcher paper, and lots of tape.  

ignore everything else until i explain :)  just check out the awesome 'big top' complete with 3D flags on top!

from there we slid my table back against it and covered it with a plain, bright blue roll of wrapping paper.  we edged the table with a roll of tickets.

after that, we covered a box with a bright, fun circle wrapping paper (yes, it was used at charlotte's caterpillar party, too.  i love this paper.)  i also just happened to have some pre-wrapped boxes from another friend's party in my garage.  we used those too.  perfect for adding some height.

next... the food!!!!

on the menu... dishes of candies, a variety of popcorns, cupcakes, corn dogs, mac & cheese bites (thank you, trader joes, for that little taste of heaven!), 'weinie roll ups', and fruit skewers. everything had fun labels that we created on the computer and then backed with fun papers.

the seal template also came from one charming party.  

little lollipops taped to the back of the seals became the 'balls' perched on their noses.

you can't really tell, but the candy dishes are wrapped with ribbon and rolls of tickets for fun.  the label was added on top.

huge popcorn tubs from the dollar tree added a fun look.  of course, we had to re-label them to add pizazz

but wait, you say.  something is missing.  that middle platform needs something.  needs a wow.  well how about...

circus cake!!!

all the templates came from one charming party.  please ignore my mildly sad green swoops.  my icing was apparently angry at me that day.

it took 5 cans of frosting to ice this bad boy.

originally, the banner the girl is holding says "happy birthday".  we painted over it and wrote "2 is a circus" as a ha-ha theme for the shower.  because really... doesn't more than one child often feel like a circus?

you think it looks great, right?  well wait until you slice it open.....

BAM!

rainbow awesomeness.  really, this picture does not do it justice.  it turned out so fabulous.  every single person at the party had a slice of cake.  that has to be a record, right?  it was that pretty.  you just had to eat it.

okay.  so after the main food table was finished, we added a little drink area over to the right.

we added sliced cucumbers, oranges, and lemons to the water.  to stick with a theme, we called it 'tight rope twister'.  it sounded way more exciting than it was.  but it looked pretty 

we stacked the cups into a fun little pyramid

and filled a cup with straws and placed it on the left-over roll of tickets with a few sharpies for cup labeling. 

added a few fun, color-coordinating bottled drinks and some lovely flowers for the finishing touch.

finally, we strung streamers arching out over the entire kitchen area to create a "big top" feel in that area. then we hung a line of turquoise tulle with 3 of the paper balls floating above the counter.  i think it turned out fun.

next... the front door.

we found ballon cut-outs at the dollar tree.  we added some ribbon and cute lettering with paint pens to create an inviting entrance....

upon entering the house, we strung more tulle with hanging paper balls.

we cut triangles out of scrapbook paper and hot glued them onto ribbon to create a super fun pennant banner.  my hubby strung them across the back wall for us.  

we added a yellow paper circle to finish it off.  

(sadly, you can't really tell, but the paper had fun patterns that matched the theme perfectly)

we also took pom poms and strung them on fishing line to create the cutest decor for the mantels and tv cabinet.  i seriously love these and want to make them in different color schemes for every holiday.  not too hard and oh-so fun.

no shower is complete without games, right?

and no circus is complete without a sideshow.

a friend of erin's has an entire tub of babies.  with both blue and pink blankets.

completely amazing. and creepy.

we had to do something with these.

jr & her husband like to wait to tell the baby's name until its' born.  

(drives me super crazy, but i love her anyways).

we thought it would be fun to name the babies.  we pinned 2 tickets on each doll.  guests got to write the name they thought jr should give the baby on each ticket.  one ticket was ripped off and put into a bowl. jr then got to pull 2 tickets out to find out what we thought she should name the baby.  the other one stayed pinned on so we would be able to view all the names.

apparently she should name the baby 'aidan garrett'.  we'll see if we're right ;)

the beautiful jr opening gifts.

me surrounded by 2 pregnant besties.

can't wait to meet these precious little boys!  

what lucky little men they will be to have these women as their mommies.

a fun, unique baby shower that we put together and pulled off in a matter of days.  

all the photos were taken by the fabulous erin