Baby Shower: Beach Theme

A good friend of mine was due with her baby a few months after I was, and even though she has several older kids, I wanted to celebrate the birth of her first baby boy. I gave her a choice of several themes and she picked out one that she liked the most, an orange and blue nautical theme, emphasizing that she particularly likes whales. So that's what I did.

We held the party at her house, since she has a nice backyard and patio. We brought tables and chairs from our church to fill the space.

I put the tables together in one long line and hung beach balls from the patio roof. Then I covered the tables in white tablecloths and used fish nets as an overlay down the center of the table. Each place setting had an orange napkin as a place mat, a white plate, a small blue napkin, and lifesavers wrapped in orange or blue tulle as a favor. 

Down the center of the table, I had seashells, orange and blue paper umbrellas, and ocean animal bath toys or sculptures.

 

At each end, I had a clear plastic pail that I filled with sand, seashells, and an ocean toy.

 

And as the main centerpiece, I had a large clear pail filled with real goldfish. I had a few plastic bottles that I filled with sand, seashells, and a Bible verse related to the ocean. There was also a nautical-themed onesie that had whales on it, a gift for the guest of honor after the shower too!

There were even bowls filled with gold whale crackers and pretzels.

I painted these signs to be displayed on the gift table.

For games, I printed out a list of odd baby products and had people guess what was real or fake. I also had a card game, similar to Go Fish, in which the winners got prizes. For the prizes, I took small canvas tote bags and painted nautical pictures on them, and then filled them with beach-themed goodies like chapstick, washcloths with fish on them, sunglasses and a few other items. Each bag also came with a message in a bottle, similar to the one used on the main table.

I painted this bouy to hang from the patio roof too.

For food, we tried to come up with snacky foods that had a nautical twist. For instance, we took hot dogs, slit them about half way up, and boiled them to make them look like they had octopus legs. My mom and I collaborated to make the cake. She baked and iced it. Then I used fondant to sculpt the whale and little sailor baby. We used fondant to make the waves, and worked together to use gel icing to decorate them. We used wires to make the spouts coming from the whale and covered them with the gel icing. However, what I dislike about the cake the most is that the way the baby was positioned on it makes it look like he's peeing. I'd change it if we did it again!

Finally, we used a tri-fold board as a photo prop, coloring it to make a baby on a beach along with a few props like a shovel and a bottle to pose with.

I love how this party turned out, and everyone thought that it was a lot of fun too!