A Hoot of a Baby Shower!

  My really good friend Brenda had her 3rd baby on July 12th and because I am a firm believer that every baby deserves a proper celebration no matter if it is your 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 5th baby I threw her a "Meet and Greet" shower last weekend! 
   Brenda has a very strong will power and has not found out the gender of any of her children, so I wasn't able to really start putting my ideas to paper until she actually had her baby - which meant I only had a month to pull this thing off!  I had a theme picked out for each gender and a million ideas for each theme floating around in my head, in a file folder and on Pinterest! 
   Once little Berkley Rae was born on July 12th it was full speed ahead for "Operation Owl Baby Shower"!!   I picked this theme based soley on the fact I find little pink owls adorable - but once the shower was all set up I learned Brenda had decided on an owl theme for Berkley's nursery too - so it worked out perfectly!

I am very proud of how this shower turned out - I love throwing parties, creating and crafting for them, but as usual I bit off more than I could almost handle.  It was down to the wire to get this thing pulled together, but I'm proud to say that everything that I wanted to do, I did and I think it turned out great (yes, I'm tooting my own horn)!

 I created this invite on Photoshop and just printed them myself...

Guests were greeted with an adorable owl when they arrived...

As well as with some hand sanitizer so they were ready to hold little Berkley!

The Food Tables...

 Guests were able to fill out cute little "wish cards" I made as well as sign the guest book.

Brenda took pictures of her belly throughout her pregnancy and unknowingly to her, I kept copies of the ones she posted on her blog - each page of the book has one belly pic on it and at the end its a picture of her holding Berkley in the hospital!  Guests could sign anywhere in the book - I was sure to leave a lot of open space.  She really liked it thankfully!!

I saw this idea on Pinterest and knew that I just had to do it!  I was a little worried about how it would turn out, but thankfully once everyone got the hang of it, it turned out perfect!  I supplied onesies and fabric squares with iron transfer that I had ironed on earlier in the week on the back and an array of stencils (I just cut different shapes out on my Cricut).  Guests picked their onesie, picked their fabric of choice and stencil (or free handed if they wanted to) and away they went!

Once they were done, they hung them on a clothes line out back so we could admire everyone's work - I think they turned out PERFECT!

I found this cute little chair at a consignment shop and Josh gave it a little...ok...A LOT of TLC and it turned out great!  I put Berkley's name on it and hopefully its a treasure she and her dolls can enjoy for many years!  Thank you Josh for all of your hard work sanding and painting this beauty - its perfect.

Berkley was having a bit of a rough day yesterday, but its her party so she can cry if she wants to!  I think deep down she enjoyed herself though!!

I still have my touch :)

And lastly, guests got to take home some homemade owl cookies.  I have to say I will probably NEVER attempt this detailed of a cookie again - they took me 3 days to do and my kitchen was a disaster for all 3 of those days and I still don't think they turned out half as cute as they should've.  Oh well - better than nothing I guess!!!

Berkley, so happy to have you in our lives little lady and I hope that you know how much you are loved.  Brenda, thank you for letting me throw you this shower, I had so much fun putting it together and am so glad that you enjoyed it!  Thanks for always being such a wonderful friend.