I mentioned the other day that I’m soon going to be hosting a bridal shower for two friends (who also happen to be future military spouses). I’m on a really tight timeline, so I didn’t really have time to order formal invitations, which is what I like to do for showers, but an evite just seemed a little too informal. Luckily, I had just discovered Paperless Post. Paperless Post offers email invitations a bit more formal than the standard evite. You can also customize their invitations, which I LOVED. Sign up for an account, and you’ll receive a number of free stamps and coins (which you can use to add embellishments to your invitation, like envelope liners). When you run out of free credits, you can purchase more for just a few dollars.

Because I’m throwing this shower for two ladies who will be marrying into our Navy family, I decided to do a Military Wife themed shower. Of course this means a red, white, and blue color palette. Here’s the Paperless Post invitation I mailed out last weekend (the envelope has a red and white liner):

Isn’t it cute? To RSVP, guests just click on the invitation, and it takes them to a registration page, which you as the host can monitor. I’m just IN LOVE with these invites!

What do you think? Do you like these?

I love my Hubby. Dearly. He’s my best friend. My rock. He keeps me sane when I go crazy (which is often). He sticks around even when I decide to redecorate a room at 11:oopm at night. Or when I go into a dressing room with fifty dresses and decide I don’t like any of them. Or watch Real Housewives of New Jersey. Or New York. Or Orange County. He’s pretty awesome.

But sometimes I REALLY don’t understand him. And the number one disagreement in our marriage? I LUUUURVE Peanut Butter. He doesn’t. Seriously. How can someone born and bred in the United States NOT like peanut butter?!?  I’m pretty sure it’s un-American. I’m frankly surprised they even let him in the military with his hatred of Peanut Butter. The man likes peanuts. Just not peanut butter! And definitely not peanut butter with chocolate. He shuns desserts  like these Squirrel Bars or these Peanut Butter Brownie cups and yes, even these Muddy Buddies. I just don’t get it.

Because of this marital difference, my friends are the happy recipients of many peanut butter/ chocolate desserts. This Sunday, my friend Tess hosted a baby shower for my friend Leighanne–this fabulous lady right here:

LOVE her! Leighanne is a fellow peanut butter/ chocolate lover. So I did what any good friend would do..I made her this guy:

This is Martha Stewart’s Peanut Butter tart. And boy was it YUMMY.  I even bought a special tart pan for the occasion (which I’m very excited to use for many other tarts in the future!):

And my favorite part of making this dessert? Shaving the chocolate with a vegetable peeler to make these little garnishes:

Aren’t they fun? These would be a such great addition to all sorts of delicious desserts! So there you have it…I guess my hubby just doesn’t know what he’s missing!

I hope you enjoyed my April Fools Day post!  Now for a real one… Head of the Table just featured an adorable Nautical Themed baby shower.  And I just LOVE it! This could be easily adjusted for a kiddo’s birthday party as well.

Check out some of these pics:

And of course…the diaper cake:

Pretty darn cute, right?  For more pics of this shower, visit the Head of the Table blog!

I told you last week that I have a TON of baby showers coming up, and last week I had another!  For this shower, I purchased a few smaller gifts…

A baby book:

Some bottles from the registry:

And a really cute little stuffed lamb:

I didn’t like  any of the frou frou baby wrapping paper, so I bought this striped paper that was in the wedding wrapping paper section! I wrapped the three gifts separately and then hand made little labels for each gift: the book with “For Baby’s Mind”;  the bottles with “For Baby’s Body”; and the little lamb with “For Baby’s Heart”.  I love how they turned out!

I hope Mom-to-Be likes these as much as I do!

Since I’ve been writing so much about baby showers lately, I felt that before I move on to other things, I should tell you about Operation Shower.   This organization, started in 2007, is a pretty fantastic nonprofit seeking to recognize and honor the sacrifices military families make by producing and coordinating baby showers and “Showers in A Box” for expecting military personnel and military spouses whose husbands are deployed.

As a rule, military deployments are pretty darn difficult, but many military spouses really take one for the team when they give birth without their husbands by their side (I’ve had friends go through this, and I just keep my fingers crossed that this doesn’t happen to my husband and I).  Operation Shower seeks to recognize these women.  Last year, Opeartion Shower held Eco-Conscious Baby Showers at Ford Hood, Texas and Scott Air Force Base, Illinois for moms-to-be who were also spouse of deployed or soon to be redeployed military personnel. Each mom-to-be received a festive box filled with baby swag including clothes, toys, books, and other essentials.

You can read more about theses particular showers on the Hostess with the Mostess blog. They’re pretty cute, so I encourage you to check them out!

If you would like to contribute to Operation Shower, you may do so at the Operation Shower website here. I’m sure you will make the day of a worthy mom-to-be!

As you know, today I went to the first of many upcoming baby showers. When picking out baby shower gifts, I always struggle between buying something off the registry and trying to find something cute and original.  I know I should buy something off the registry, after all, this is what the mom-to-be has thoughtfully requested, and usually, these are the things she really needs.  BUT, there are just so many super cute baby things out there!!! What’s a girl to do?  For today’s baby shower, I decided a combination of the two was in order!  Mom-to-be had registered for some bath items, which i purchased, but then added a bath toy and a little bath caddy to round out a bathtime-themed gift.

I wrapped the items in blue and gray tissue paper and packaged the items in the bath caddy.  I really love this blue and gray color combination.  Gray is one of my favorite accent colors.  It doesn’t really coordinate with the colors of my house, but I try to use it whenever I can elsewhere.  I find it so fresh and modern–it was perfect for this fashionable mom-to-be!

Last but not least, I created a coordinating card.  I had about three minutes to create this as I was running late, so it’s not super original, but I think it turned out okay. I always keep a wide selection of color papers and embellishments, so that I have plenty of supplies on hand for quick projects like this.  I just glued gray and blue paper to a blank white card and added a piece of ribbon.  I also used a piece of ribbon to spice up the envelope.  The ribbon, or “decorative tape” as it’s technically known, is adhesive backed, which makes it GREAT for crafting projects.  I believe this is Martha Stewart brand for Michaels.

The shower was absolutely lovely, and Mom-to-be was showered with oodles of adorable baby gear!  Congratulations Carolyn!

It seems that ALL of my friends are pregnant right now!  I’m going to one baby shower tomorrow and one next week, and every day it seems I hear that one more of my friends has a bun in the oven!  Because it seems to be the season, I thought I’d share with you pics of the baby shower I threw for my friend Autumn last year!  First, I started with an invitation.  I love Tiny Prints, and I found an invitation I really liked on their site.  If you like it, you can order it here!

I chose the pink and green from this invitation as my color inspiration, and I went out and bought anything I could find that was pink or green (seriously, I had a bit of a problem).  I like to stick with color combinations when it comes to baby showers, as this lets you venture away from  plates/napkins/decor covered in pacifiers and baby booties and express your creativity!

At the time, we lived in a townhouse, and it was sometimes a little difficult to find out place.  Inspired by the invitation, I used poster board to create these signs directing guests to the party!

Using fabric paint, I painted the little chick from the invitation on a plain white onesie and hung it on our door using laundry pins to let guests know they had arrived!  After the shower, I gave this to the Mom-to-be!

I used simple tablecloths and flowers I bought at a local flower stand to decorate the tables. I love the way the outside table looked!  It was so inviting!

You can’t really see it in those pics, but I also had black and white pregnancy photos of the Mom-to-be framed and placed around the house.  It was really neat, as she hadn’t even seen them yet! (A mutual friend was the photographer, so I got them from her.) As a centerpiece for the coffee table, I made this baby bouquet.  I saw these on MarthaStewart.com, and knew I had to make it!  You can learn how to make one on Martha’s website,  or if you’re not the crafty type, you can buy one at www.BabyBunch.com. It was a cute centerpiece and then a practical gift after the party!

I bought clear glass baby bottles and filled them with pink and green candy and placed them all around the house. Unfortunately, because the candy was in sealed bottles and  I had a pretty large spread, not many people snacked on the candy. So I was left with A LOT of pink and green candy.  Maybe next time I’ll hand these out as favors!

I made all the munchies (lemon bars, shortbread cookies, chicken salad sandwiches, artichoke dip, cream cheese jalepeno dip, mixed berries, and salad), and a friend brought green and pink cupcakes.  I really loved how the shortbread cookies came out.  You can make these in any color–they’re pretty darn easy! They’re also from Martha Stewart’s website. Warning: These cookies contain LOTS and LOTS of butter.  There.  You had a fair warning.

Mom-to-be requested no silly games, so I tried to keep the games pretty simple. I gave a baby trivia quiz, had guests guess the celebrity baby, and then we played baby bingo as Mom opened her presents.  Since there was a lot of paper involved in these games, I made little prepackaged folders that I passed out to the guests. This worked really well.

The guess the celebrity baby game was pretty fun.  I found photos of celebrities as babies on the web, printed them out in black and white on photo paper, and hung them up like garland on the stairs.  The guests were all checking out the photos as folks were arriving!

Guests who won the games picked a prize wrapped in green and pink.  The prizes were, you guessed it, all green and pink–green pillar candles, green and pink candy, and pink and green body products. Lastly, outside on our patio, I hung letters that I bought at Michaels for .50 each and painted the colors of the shower.

I hope you enjoyed this peak into my party planning process (say that five times).  If you have any cute baby shower ideas, be sure to share in the comments section!

P.S.  You’ll all be happy to know that I washed my pants!!!