Coolest Polka Dot Baby Shower

by Jacquie Donaghy
(Lansdale, PA )

My son, Rob, was 17 when his son, Eli, was born. The baby's mother was having a girl's only shower so I decided to throw a Polka Dot baby shower for Rob. Sixty People showed up!

Our theme was blue and white with polka dots.

I had to keep the cost down so I recycled many things. I had hosted a 50th surprise party for my sister-in-law two weeks before the shower. (she thought her party was the shower and came carrying gifts!) So I reused many of the things from her party after I made slight changes to them.

The table fabric and the flower arrangements were from her party a Civil War/Star Trek/Star Trek party. The tables and chairs were borrowed and I bought polka- dotted fabric from the outlet at $1 yard. I went to thrift stores and shopped online for the cheapest deals.

I made all the food myself. I saved tin cans for months and asked friends for theirs to make the party favors. I wrapped them in white or blue construction paper and put white polka dots on the blue paper and blue polka dots on the white paper. (The dots were all left over from sheets of yard sale stickers. I copied a sweet poem about baby boys from the internet and put it on the middle of the can.

Around the poem I glued ribbon with polka dots to finish the look) I filled the tin cans with blue and white tissue paper and then filled them with candies pertaining to a baby inside: Sugar Baby's, Baby Ruths, Cry Babies, Sugar Daddys (for Rob) and Runts! I put up a reminder to all to be careful on the tin cans and to please make sure the cans are recycled when they are empty.

Each table had a white fabric on the bottom and a few yards of polka dotted on top. We pinned dollar store taffeta around the top on the edges and secured them to both layers with large safety pins.

 

To that we added ribbon with baby toys for Eli: rattles, stuffed toys, etc, to each corner to hold the cloths down in case of wind and also to look cute! I bought blue and white balloons from the dollar store and put white polka dots on the blue balloons and blue polka dots on the white balloons. They really tied the look of our theme when hung with blue or white ribbon. I even put while polka dots on blue drinking cups!

I searched the internet and found blue and white polka dotted baby shower cupcake papers. I made these instead of a cake. The flower arrangements were our friendly tin cans, wrapped in blue paper with white polka dots. These were from my sister-in-law's party.

Inside were simple dollar store roses: white and pink. To finish the look I used the floating pearl strands from the dollar store. They looked adorable on the tables!

I made a welcome sign for Eli (who had no name until he was ready to go home from the hospital!) out of blue and pink construction paper from a school supply store. I used decorative scissors to cut out the letters and we hung the sign up on our privacy wall on the patio.

Our game was a little bit unconventional but so much fun and a big hit!

 

The kids had been back and forth for months about a name for baby and just couldn't decide. So Maw Maw made it my mission to name this poor kid before he was born. I wrote up papers asking guests to name the baby. I collected them and read them aloud for votes and the laughter was contagious! There was Alexander Hamilton, Big Bird, and Barak Obama to name a few. A winner was chosen and their prize of 100 freeze pops was most appreciated, we were having a heat wave!

I made way too much food, as usual, and the party was a huge success! My son was very happy, the baby received many wonderful gifts and we have some great family memories.

Thank you!