Guess How Much We Love Baby Wendel!

Well as you know I've been dying to share the details for Katie's shower. Mom and I have been talking about it for months, so it's been hard to not blab stuff to her or to you all. We transformed the basement at our house into a pink and green, baby book wonderland! We had a lot of ideas that involved handmade stuff - so my mom made the genius decision to have the food catered. Best thing ever. More on that tomorrow though... today is all about the decor.

Here are some overview shots:

Unfortunately I took a lot of these before the food or drinks were out, but maybe that's better since I'm saving the food for tomorrow. ;) The letter banner was inspired by a Pinterest find, and is a line from "Guess How Much I Love You." I edited the letters in photoshop so that the middles of the letters were empty to cut out, and printed them on card stock from Paper Source at like size 1000 font so each letter filled a page. Then I just taped them to mint green twine and we played around with it until we got it to hang just right!

We moved the furniture around to make room for some cocktail table seating behind the couch, and Mom made the most beautiful little arrangements for each table.  

Again wish I had remembered to shoot this after we had drinks in the bar cart (that my mom covered in sweet fabric) and the punches made.  We spelled out "Sweet Baby" in brown craft letters from Hobby Lobby that we covered with different patterns of paper. The "glasses" are mason jars (they came with awesome little labels for names!), and the pink and green straws are from Shop Sweet Lulu. 

The "reading corner" where Katie opened gifts. Everyone was asked to bring an unwrapped book for Baby Wendel that they put on the little bookshelf.

My mom had pictures of Katie and Henry blown up when they were around the same age as babies and wearing cowboy gear (Katie has some awesome boots on that you can't really see.) 

The gift table, with a "Baby Wendel!" banner above it. They sell plain white penant banners at Hobby Lobby, and Mom just put patterned paper over each and we found letters to glue on top of that.

Now, I'm sure you've noticed the amazing book cover art hanging around all over the party. My mom MADE these - aren't they amazing?! She used a projector to trace these book covers onto foam board, and then colored them all in. Her coloring skills are insane. Here they are all together:

SO cool, right?  Here's a little collection of some of the other details up close:

Peonies were everywhere because they're Katie's fave. I already talked about the mason jars and straws, and we also provided pink and mint sharpies for people to label their drinks. The favors are Smores "balls" in little white paper bags hole punched with mint twine (from Save-on-Crafts) tied through. "It's a Girl Thing" was a stamp Mom got at Hobby Lobby.

These were the little book labels we sent everyone with their invitation. We put some extras out in case people forgot their or brought more than one book.

Also had to show the mantle, where Mom put the Guess How Much I Love you cover AND inside page she made. The wreath was on the trolley Katie and Henry rode from the church in on their wedding day:

We also did UP-style balloons on the two pillars at the entrance to our driveway. Mom did them in baskets that kind of resembled Moses baskets - super cute! This pic would have been prettier in the daylight, but we didn't get out there until after the party.

We had so much fun planning and decorating the shower, but the best part of course was Katie's reaction and being able to celebrate her and lil homey. Everyone else had a great time too:

We are so happy and excited for you Katie and can't wait to meet mini Wendel!