‘love is sweet’ shower

I had the pleasure of helping my mom throw a wedding shower for my cousin’s fiance last week. She an amazing job – as any auntie would. However, she doesn’t love the crafty side of theme parties so much… that is where I came in. Luckily, it was the weekend after a whole week off for Spring Break, so I had a bit more time than usual to help make things. It was really fun and I think it turned out super cute. I used Martha’s site a bunch. Good ole’ Martha.

Here are a few highlights of the things I made or did for the party ….
1. Banners
2. Shirt with her new last name
3. Accordion booklet for guests to write marriage advice (real or silly)
4. Tissue paper pom poms (my favorite part)
5. Wrapped water bottles with coordinating colors (very cute attention to detail)
6. Lollipop favors
7. Origami Hearts

The theme was ‘Love is Sweet’ and the colors were red and pink. It was a success. Here are some pictures.

A little accordion book that I stamped with wedding themed stamps and glued coordinating paper in. All the guests wrote a little bit of advice or a note. There were some real and some funny (cook naked). I should have taken a picture of it after we all wrote in it. Whoops.

I wrapped water bottles with strips of paper and ribbon. I think it’s a sweet touch. Good news if you are interested in doing this. Regular ole’ 8.5 X 11 paper is the perfect width already. Just cut strips and tape it!

The dessert table had martini glasses filled with different kinds of pink and red candies. The punch was a hit – just frozen pink lemonade and Sprite!

A quick picture of the cake. It’s not the most beautiful cake in the world. The bakery could have done a MUCH better job decorating it – but it was the MOST delicious cake I possibly have ever had. One side had lemon filling and one side had raspberry filling. Man, I wish I had a piece of the lemon right now!

The favors were giant lollipops that read “Love is”. We made tags that said “Sweet” “j + p” (the bride and grooms initials) on one side and “Thanks for coming” on the other side.
The origami hearts you can see here. They were scattered all over the party. I was going to write “j+p” on all of them, but ran out of time. I found a tutorial on how to make them here, in case you want to know, but I had my Japanese students show me. It is SUPER easy!

So, I didn’t make these, but I found them. We used these tins as prizes for winners of the games. They were so perfect for our little theme.

The food table. We had yummy little finger sandwiches (tuna, chicken and cucumber) fruit, cheese tray, olives, nuts, deviled eggs. Tasty. I wrote what kind of sandwiches they were on some of the origami hearts as labels. The flowers were so pretty. My mom cut white lilacs and pink dogwood from her yard and added in some red roses from the store!

My favorite part were the tissue paper pom-poms! Oh my so easy and so fun! Why have I not made these before? Of course, the tutorial is from Martha! Check it out here.

First, print the letters on colored paper. I used the template here, from who else…Martha. Then I cut out the letters I needed.

Then I glued them together with a glue stick.

Next was the fun part. I took the handy dandy glue gun and made a line of hot glue and pressed the streamer into it, kind of making pleats all around. I am sure some people would have done it way more precicly, but I just kind of bunched it up and glued. It worked well.

Then you line up the finished circles, and glue it to ribbon. I ran out of ribbon and just used string on some of the banners. You have to glue it to the top of the circle or it will hang funny. Then – all done! They were easy, but time consuming and very cute.

And lastly, here is a picture of the lovely bride Jessica and my favorite gift that she received at the shower (not from me – I would have kept it! It was from her future Mother-in-law.) I am seriously coveting it! 🙂 It’s a cast iron enameled pot, and it is red AND it is Martha! Perfect.