One of my good friends is having a baby in January and I wanted to throw her a shower, so I decided to just do it! Sometimes I doubt myself as a hostess because I am not as funny/interesting as I would like to be, but I had so much fun prepping for this that I thought I should do this more often!

In keeping with simplicity, I decided to go with the theme of Fall because who doesn't love Fall?!? Also, my house is decorated in fall colors right now, because of my Christmas tree all year round. Also, I LOVE fall treats and I had fun making all of them (with the help of dear hubby of course!)

So, here are the details:

Decorations:

I decided to try to combine some ideas I found on Pinterest, but to put a twist that would work for me and my budget.
I have always thought that decorating with colored paper to be budget-friendly, but also cute. I made the sign using this template. I printed on fall colored paper and used these letters.
Then it was simple cut and paste and use some string to display it.






For this little string ensemble, I simply bought fall colored onesies from WalMart to match my color scheme and used this pumpkin pattern. I used this pumpkin pattern throughout on the little pumpkin sign, the food signs, this clothing set, and I made a pumpkin strand too.
And here is my Christmas tree decorated for Fall! I loved how it turned out. It is one of my favorites yet. Coming soon is a blog post of my Christmas tree all year round!




Food:

I loved thinking of fall treats to have to go along with the theme. I ended up making:

• Pumpkin Cookies
• Applesauce Raisin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (a favorite family recipe!)
• Snickerdoodle Bread
• Zucchini Bread (my husband's amazing recipe!)

I had a friend bring some fruit and we had apple juice and water. The thing I loved about it is that it was simple, but all very sweet and good!




Gifts:
I have always seen diaper cakes, but never knew how the magic of making them worked, so I did some research on Pinterest and came up with my own way after reading others' ideas.
Here is how I did it:
Materials:
Diapers (I used newborn and size 1. I had a pack of 40 newborn and some leftover size 1 diapers from an already open package, so it came out to being about 24-28 of that size.)
Rubber bands
Toilet paper rolls (One for each diaper cake)
Ribbon (I used two rolls of 9 ft. ribbon for the three diaper cakes shown below)
Toppers (I got the cute pumpkin toppers from the dollar store).

Directions:
1. Start rolling diapers and once you have about 5 rolled, secure a rubber band around all of them. Continue to roll diapers and slide them into the rubber band. For the top layer I used about 7 diapers.
After all 7 diapers are in place, use another rubber band around all of the diapers for that "layer" to make sure they are secure.
Repeat for as many diaper cakes as you want.
2. Arrange the diapers so that the ends are tucked towards the middle and the whitest part is showing on the outside.
3. For the bottom layer, I started with about 5 diapers and secured a rubber band around all of them.  Continue rolling diapers and adding them into the rubber band. I used about 12-15 diapers for the bottom layer. Use additional rubber bands to secure the whole layer.
Repeat for as many diaper cakes as you want. Arrange diapers like the top layers so the ends are tucked towards the middle.
4. Use toilet paper roll to slide halfway over one diaper in the middle of the bottom layer. Then take a top layer and slide the remaining poking out toilet paper roll over a middle diaper. This connects the two layers without having to use tape or glue on the diapers.
It may need a little maneuvering to make the top layer sit just right on the bottom layer.
This was important for me because I didn't want it it to be hard or taxing to take apart.
If you would like to do additional layers, simply use a paper towel roll that is taller to connect more layers or you can use multiple toilet paper rolls between layers.
I wanted to have short diaper cakes and multiple ones to use for decorations all around the party.
5. Now that each cake has the top and bottom layer connected, use ribbon to cover the rubber bands. This is the fun part because you can be creative! You can use thin or thick ribbon and do different combinations!
6. Attach your toppers (if you have them). I attached the pumpkins with one piece of packaging tape. (That was the cheap option), however you can avoid using tape on the diapers by hot gluing your topper to a small dowel and sliding it down into the diaper cake.

And this is what you get! I am happy with how they turned out.


I also got the mother-to-be some thank you cards so that she had something ready to use to write to people.




Games:

We played a version of charades with baby and pregnancy terms.
Round 1: Everyone picks a word or phrase from the bowl and they can describe it. Once everyone has gone, put the words back into the bowl and use the same words for the next round.
Round 2: Only actions! However, players already know the words from round 1, so it is not quite so hard as charades.
Round 3: Use the same words again and have players only say ONE word to describe it.

We only did the first two rounds, but it is fun to do all three as well!
You can come up with your own pregnancy terms or you can use my list.