Sugar & Spice Baby Shower - Shower Games

I recently hosted a baby shower for a friend of my expecting her first daughter.   She likes pink and brown and is actually designing the baby room around those colors, so I came up with a Sugar and Spice theme to incorporate the colors in the shower.  We had a Neapolitan look through out the shower with cotton candy, vanilla, and chocolate colors along with some dark pink or fuchsia.

Invitations: I sent out email invitations to everyone.  I found a pretty dark pink background with a cherry blossom/branch design to put on the invitation.  I added the Sugar and Spice poem with the party details which included that we would have some munchies and lots of sweets so they should bring their sweet tooth with them.   I gave not only the place and time but the stores mom to be registered too. Menu and Tablescape:  I wanted to do a spicy menu and a sweet menu, but reality was I did not have the time in my schedule to make this happen.  So I just settled for a dessert party with some standard party fare to balance the sweets.  I have a huge island in my kitchen that is perfect for buffet style parties.  I laid 2 extra large cotton dark brown table clothes over deep and shallow Easter baskets and various serving ware holders to create layers on the table.  The holders for the various serving ware where in black and silver so I laid them under the table cloth for more uniformity.  The white ceramic dishes fit snugly into the holders with the cloth over them too.  My sink is in the island so to camouflage this I made a diaper cake for the mother to be and place it dead center in front of the sink. You can find details of this cake below in special gifts section.  I put 1 medium size serving holder  with a white ceramic bowl in front of that and the 2 matching smaller ones flanking it.  Again the holders were tucked under the cloth.  Inside these bowls were pita chips and 2 kinds of dips, hummus and spinach dip.  I found dark pink leather 5 inch letters in a block font for the baby's room, so I placed in front of these bowls. 

I had dipped Strawberries and pink marshmallows in chocolate and made a bouquet in medium glass cylinder vases that flanked the diaper cake.  The vases were wrapped with 3 inch satin pink ribbon. I placed small foam square that I wrapped with a cream napkin and stuck the skewers into at different heights to make the bouquet.  On the right hand side of the diaper cake, was a 3 tier serving dish that I placed mini brownie bites on the top white plate, neopolitan egg shaped eggs on the middle plate, and chocolate covered cream puffs on the bottom plate.  Each of these items was put into white mini cupcake liners and had a dark pink napkin underneath.  Next to this, I used a deep Easter bucket under the table cloth to separate a 2 ring white ceramic chip/veggie dish.  The large ring fit perfectly around the bucket and the smaller ring with the small bowl center fit on top of the upside down bucket.  In the bottom ring I put pasta salad that I made from a box. In the smaller ring I put sliced celery sticks and baby carrots with curly parley garnish.  I put ranch dressing in the small bowl to dip the veggies.  In front of I laid a shallow Easter bucket right side up under the table cloth and put a clear plastic bowl inside to hold the green salad which was just from premix bag with Italian dressing.  I strongly encourage putting the dressing on the side.  I actually had dark pink dipping bowls I could have used to put different dressings or even used my empty Olive Garden dressing bottles, but did not think of it at the time.  The salad became wilted very fast. 

Next to the salad I put another deep Easter bucket upside down and put a large white oval platter on top with a grapes and cheese cubes.  I used green and red grapes with pepper jack, monterrey jack, and cheddar cheese cubes.  I garnished again with curly parsley and grape tomatoes.  In front of this dish was a medium round white ceramic dish with mini iced vanilla cupcakes and mini iced sugar cookies with light pink and cream colored icing.  On the left side of the diaper cake we had a 2 tier bowl server that we put a block of cream cheese with Chipotle raspberry jelly sauce covering it on the bottom and crackers on the top.  Next to this I laid a deep Easter Bucket right side up under the table cloth and put my glass cake pedestal into it to hold the rice krispie treats.  These were made by my sister lay with the strawberry marshmallows to make them pink, of course.  She used my Easter cookie cutters, to make flower and bunny shapes along with the standard square shape.  Behind the dip and krispie treats I had the pink and cream 9 inch luncheon plates with a utensil caddy that held clear plastic forks and spoons.  I had the light pink luncheon napkins next to both of them too.  In front of the dishes I had another deep Easter bucket turned upside down under the table cloth with another large oval platter.  I put turkey finger sandwiches on this platter that were garnished with curly parsley, grape tomatoes and black olives. The sandwiches were regular white sliced bread with mayo, a turkey deli meat slice and provolone cheese cut into triangles. 

Next to this platter was a small 3 tier bowl serving dish that I put black olives, grape tomatoes, and baby dill pickles in each small white ceramic bowl.  In front of this was square 4 section platter that sat on a metal stand, placed under the table cloth that had more mini cupcakes and mini cookies.  We did squeeze in a small plate for bread chunks next to the spinach dip for the mom to be who is a bread junkie.  In between the dishes I placed 3 inch tall and wide glass votive holders with clear, white and frosted glass rocks and pink votive candles.  I wrapped each one with a ¼ inch brown satin ribbon too.  I found brown, fuchsia, and light pink latex balloons that I had filled with helium and tied groups of 3 onto various dishes to have a sea of balloons floated over the food.  This filled up lots of space and covered my cabinets during picture time.  I have another countertop area next to the island that I use for drinks for most of my parties, so I covered this with a light pink plastic table cover and put my candy bar on the very end so the guest could fill a clear cellophane bag full of several different candies. 

I used extra large margarita glasses, cylinder glass vases in several sizes, apothecary jars, and round glass vases to hold several candies.  I wrapped the clear vessels with ¼ inch and 2 inch satin brown ribbon along with some fuchsia curling ribbon.  I used strawberry whoppers, caramels, 2 kinds of pink wrapped kisses (one in raspberry and the other was wrapped in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness), chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate whoppers, Hershey kissables and M&M's.  Now, for the M&M's and Kissables I had to use Valentine candy that had red in the bag, so I separated the colors, light pink and dark pink together, white, and red.  I used the pinks and the whites for the candy bar.  I put the pink and white kissables in one of the jars.  The light and dark pink M&M's in another and the white M&M's in another.  I had regular and peanut M&M's separated in case of any guests had allergies to peanuts.  I purchased a white scooper and placed it in one of the jars.  I made some coffee to go with the desserts and had creamer, sugars, and Styrofoam cups in a plastic pink Easter bucket and pink harlequin designed Chinese take out box. 

Next to the coffee I had a punch bowl with peach-y tea sangria, pitchers of pink lemonade, and a 2 liter of root beer.  Behind the drinks I had a bowl with ice in it and the paper pink and cream cups stacked beside them.  The peach-y tea sangria was peach tea, orange juice, 7-up, and frozen fruit.  The pink lemonade had 7-up in it too.  I tied several of the helium filled balloons to the cabinets above the drink station too.  Set up and Decorations:  I placed garden stakes up my walkway in the front with dark pink 6 inch paper lanterns handing from them.  It was quite windy that day so I tied them to the stakes with brown ribbon that hung down to blow in the wind too.  This helped several guests that have never been to my house locate the correct house for the shower.  I set up my living room with extra chairs from the formal and the counter stools around by sectional for the guests to sit, eat, drink, and mingle.  I also had my breakfast nook table open for additional seating.   On the coffee table we had a tray with a fuchsia placemat and a white bowl to hold the thank you cards for the guests to fill out the envelops to make mom to be's job easier.  I used the fireplace to hold the prize bags, games supply bag, and for the guest to put their gifts.  

Games/Prizes:  I had 5 games prepared to play, but only got through 4 of them.  We did Feed the Baby where you have teams of 2 and one person is blindfolded and feeds the other person apple sauce with only directions from the other person.  This was quite entertaining to watch, but due to the number of guests and participate was not as organized as I would of liked.  The correct way to play is to put the baby in a chair and the blindfolded mommy in a chair in front of the baby. The baby can not move, but can tell the mommy left, right, up, or down to get the spoonful of baby food into their mouth.  It is highly recommended to use the plastic disposable bibs since most woman dress up for a shower.  The prizes for this game were 2 mini grass beach bags, lined with pink fabric, filled with pink bubble bath, pink shower gel, glitter body powder, and pink foot pumise stone in the shape of a flower. 

Second Game, Who does this Celbritot belong to? , which was hand outs I made on the computer where the guest had to match the celebrity baby with their celebrity parents.  I had like 25 to 30 babies to match up on the sheet.  I handed them all out and gave them a specific time frame to match as many as they could.  The winner of this game won a beautiful tea/coffee mug from Mary Kay that was stuffed with Tazo tea bags.  It was still in the original box, so I placed in a hot pink Mary Kay gift bag too. 

Third game was Baby Bottle Race which is a typical shower game and also very entertaining.  I filled 5 oz bottles with 2 oz of apple juice and passed them out to the participating guests.  On the count of 3 they had to suck all the juice out of the bottle with out removing the nipple and the first one to yell DONE was our winner.  This guest also won a tea/coffee mug as described earlier. 

The last game was Don't Get Caught which was actually played through out the shower from time of arrival.  This is a great icebreaker game when you have different circle of friends coming to one party.  I handed out mini clothes pins to each guest and explained the rules to them so they could play while mingling with the other guests.  Rules of this game are as follows, but leave room for interpretation You can not say BABY or cross your legs.  If someone catches you then they get your pin and if you have more than one pin you give up all of them.  This means if you catch someone breaking the rules then you get all their pins.  You are not considered out because you lost your pins either, you just wait for one of the guests to break the rule and you can be back in the game in a matter of seconds.  The winner of this game also received the tea/coffee mug prize. 

The last games was something I found last minute at a discount store on clearance.  They were pre-printed cards with animal name on each one and the guests put the baby animal name next to it.  We did not get to this one, but I happen to have cake plates and napkins that match the design across the top, so I am saving this for baby number 2 they have already started planning once this one is born. 

Special gifts:  Diaper Cake was made out of a pack of size 5 diapers.  The bottom and large tier had a  1 brown blanket with pink heart polka dots wrapped around the diapers. This blanket also had a cute pink elephant on it that I exposed on the front of the cake.  The 2nd tier was wrapped with a blanket that was pink with brown polka dots and had a fuchsia 1 inch satin ribbon tied around it with a bow on the side.  The top tier was wrapped with 2 cloth bibs, one was pink with brown writing, I am too cute to eat vegetables.  The other one was pink with brown elephants on it and I also used fuchsia ribbon around this tier to keep it all together.  I placed a brown bunny and a T as the cake topper.  The T stood for the parents last name since they have not decided on a first name as of yet.  I had purchased 3 packs of diapers and only used one, so I placed the other 2 packs in a gift bag with some other items I had found for the baby's room since I am assisting with the decorating.