The Clam Bake Baby Shower

At this point in my life, I have the whole throwing a shower for a friend thing down. I’ve hosted a lot of bridal showers, bachelorette parties and baby showers in my life. I have also been friends with Gail for well over 16 years now (yep, we are getting old) and I have probably had parts of her baby shower planned in my head for at least the last eight! See, Gail has this love obsession with baby names. And she has been pretty set on a boy name and a girl name for years now and I as a result I had been set to throw a baby shower at an Irish pub if it was going to be a boy or Cape Cod themed shower if it was a girl. Gail is being a good and protective mom, so I can’t actually share the baby’s name with you to tell you why those themes work with the names… but if you are friends with either of us, you get it. Gail and Puff’s sweet bundle of joy is going by the blog name (and probably knickname) Little Bimmer, as in the German equivalent of Beamer…. because Puff has a slight obsession with BMWs. Anyway, Gail is due any day now, so I hosted the shower back in mid-April with all of our college friends and I got to go with my New Englan/Cape Cod Clam Bake theme and it was a blast! Rach helped out with a lot of the items and it was fun to brainstorm with her in the weeks leading up to the event. So how did we pull of a New England Clam Bake Shower… check out the pics below!

I loved these invites. They were very Gail. Teal and pink with shades of gray with all sorts of different designs.

I’ve been on a bit of a balloon kick lately when it comes to decorating, so I picked up two dozen pink and teal balloons to fill the entry hall when you walked into the house. I also had order some giant pink and teal tissue paper poms off of etsy, so those were hanging all over the house, and there were a lot of teal and pink candle holders and rubber ducks sprinkled throughout the house.

Rach made these super cute candle holders with white rocks in the bottom and twine around the glass. We were going for something that could be reused and felt nautical.

What is a shower without food? To fit with the Clam Bake theme we did a spin on the New England version, with food that Gail would eat…. so instead of baked clams, we had grilled shrimp in a yummy Italian seasoning, lemon and butter marinade. Then grilled corn on the cob with Old Bay seasoning and boiled new potatoes. I made cheese and vegetable platter that we served with Rach’ s homemade bread (best stuff ever in the history of bread). Plus some yummy chips and salsa because I had a craving for them. Really- Publix’s organic blue corn tortilla chips and organic salsa are my faves.  Then there was pink lemonade and pink sparking grape juice in honor of the soon to be little girl we were celebrating!

And it is not a shower without some kickbutt desserts and desserts we do well! I picked up some petit fours from the bakery and I made my Strawberry Creme Pie at Gail’s request. Then Rach made these yummy lemon cookies. Amazing.

Loved the napkins…. silverware wrapped up in twine and a lifesaver in a cute vase for easy access on the buffet line!

Gail isn’t really into games, so I promised a game free baby shower after I made her endure many at her two bridal showers. So we opted for two activities instead. In keeping with the theme…. we wrote “messages in a bottle” for Little Bimmer that will go in her scrapbook. Of course, with our group of friends I had to tell everyone that they couldn’t tell inappropriate stories in them about her mama in college.

The second activity was a ton of fun! We headed out onto the back deck and decorated onesies! I had picked up fabric paint and stencils along with a bunch of white onesies. They were all waiting on a clothesline stretched in front of the fireplace when everyone came in and then we took them outside to get some sun. It was a lot of fun to sit around and talk and wait to see if we could see Bimmer kick.

And here I am taking a break from the grill to point out the mess I made of my shirt. I had spilled some of the grape juice when I was in the kitchen and somehow got some on my white blouse. The idea of me spilling something on my shirt is not uncommon, so Gail had to be sure to get a picture of it.

And last but not least, Baby Bimmer. Can’t wait to meet you!!!