As an almost-40-year-old woman living in the South, I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’ve never hosted a baby shower. So when I decided to give my sweet niece Ashley a baby shower, I had no idea where to start!

I looked around on Pinterest for some ideas, and also thought back on all the baby showers I had been to in my life, and came up with “4 F’s” that I wanted this shower to have – Food, Frill, Family and friends, and Fun!

I’ll start with the most important “F” –

1 – Food – Anyone that’s ever been to a shower knows that “shower food” is the best! Diets don’t count at showers, you can eat with your fingers, the plates are small so you have to go back for seconds… the food is the main reason people show up at a shower!

You’ll want to have a variety of “finger food,” like these mini chicken salad sandwiches and turkey pinwheels, and at least two dips, like this hot pepperoni dip and 7-layer Mexican dip. Party food is a good excuse to get all the pretty serving trays you never use out of the back of your cabinets! I forgot I even had some of these!

Since this was a baby shower AND being held at a church, the drinks were of course non-alcoholic. Lemon slices and mint leaves gave the water and punch a more formal and festive look.

And of course there was a cake!

Sometimes the more simple something is, the more elegant it looks. We kept the cake very simple with just solid baby pink flowers, and I think its simplicity made it stand out even more.

2 – Frill – After planning my menu for the shower, it was time to plan the decorations! I didn’t have a huge budget for decorations, so I used a few things I already had.

This onesie with the new baby’s name on it fit with my “rustic floral” theme, so I hung it up as a decoration instead of wrapping it. I printed this quote from Pinterest and framed it, and it can go in the nursery after the shower.

These white lanterns were leftover from a wedding, so I filled them with pink flowers and reused them as table centerpieces.

The rest of the decorations came from Hobby Lobby and were not expensive at all. I am a huge believer in “less is more,” so I kept it simple with white tablecloths, and pink, white and gold accent decorations.

3 – Family and Friends – Of course there can’t be a shower without guests!

We invited all of Ashley’s friends and family, and she got a ton of wonderful presents for baby Stella. It was so good to catch up with everyone, especially the ones I hadn’t seen in a while.

There were “advice” cards for everyone to fill out for the new mom, and that got everyone telling stories about their experiences and memories.

4 – Fun – I  haven’t been to very many showers that had games, but I knew I wanted something fun at this one. Too many times everyone is sitting around at showers waiting for it to be over so they can leave, and I wanted this one to actually be enjoyable.

Pinterest is full of ideas for baby shower games, but many were very time-consuming or not appropriate for a shower being held at a church. I finally decided on a couple that I thought would be fun…

We played the “Don’t say baby!” game, but looking back we should have changed it to “Don’t say cute!” – because everyone kept describing all the presents she opened as “so cute!” And don’t let those sweet Baptist women fool you – they can be very competitive! It was very entertaining to watch everyone stealing clothespins!

We also had a photo board where the guests got to guess which baby pictures belonged to the mom and dad of baby Stella, and it was fun hearing everyone thinking out loud about their guesses.

The winners of the games got prizes, and it was so nice to have all the laughter and fellowship instead of just sitting around watching presents get opened.

At the end of the shower, everyone was full and smiling, so I guess my first baby shower was a success!

 

 

Congratulations Ashley! I can’t wait to meet baby Stella!

 

I’ve been wanting to update my mom’s bathroom for YEARS, so I was super excited when she FINALLY gave me the go-ahead! My dream in life is to be Joanna Gaines, you know – have good hair everyday and walk around with my coffee picking out paint colors and area rugs, so you can imagine my excitement to have an opportunity to “flip” a bathroom!

Here are the “before” pictures –

Yes, that is wallpaper border, and yes, the sink and bathtub are blue, and yes, that’s a toilet seat cover on her vanity stool. And don’t get me started about the pink stuff everywhere and the single ceramic butterfly on the wall above the toilet. I definitely had my work cut out for me!

There wasn’t enough in the budget for a new bathtub and sink, and I was scared to try and resurface them to white, so I had to work around the blue. The first thing I had to do was decide on a new accent color that would go along with this light blue, because the pink obviously wasn’t working. My mom really likes navy blue, so I decided to go with that and a neutral light gray.  Since there is so much white in the bathroom with the tiles and vanity, I knew a darker color would really stand out.

She also wanted a new shower curtain rod and new window curtain rod, since the ones she had were as old as the house, which was built in the 1960’s.

I started looking around my favorite low-budget stores for inspiration, and found this beautiful shower curtain at target –

It is white with the same color light blue as the bathtub, and has navy blue in it as well. It was the perfect starting place!

Next I found some simple, cute things at TJ Maxx for the sink and vanity area –

The blues and grays go with the color scheme, and it is so much more clean and simple. The wooden lid on the glass jar gives a little warmth, and the plant gives some texture. I wasn’t able to find a new vanity stool that would fit under the counter, so I gave her old one a fresh coat of white spraypaint and made a new seat cushion with some navy and white material from Hobby Lobby.

Not only does the stool look better, but the foam I used is much thicker than her old seat cushion, so it’s more comfortable for her to sit on. I also gave the vanity and drawers a fresh coat of white paint and found these drawer pulls at Lowe’s for only $2 each!

I needed something else navy for the walls to tie in the accent color, so I took a scrap of the leftover seat cushion material and put it in a pretty white frame for the wall –

And speaking of the walls, there was entirely too much white in this bathroom, so I wanted to do something to the top part of the bathroom where the tile stopped. We got some samples of the removable peel-and-stick wallpaper to look at, but they were either the wrong color or too busy of a pattern, not to mention it would cost over $150 to get enough rolls of it for the whole room. I decided to paint the top part of the walls instead, and chose this warm light gray color (“soulful gray” Valspar paint at Lowe’s). The color on the walls not only warmed the room up, but gave it some definition it lacked when it was white floor-to-ceiling. I was afraid it may make the already-small bathroom look even smaller, but it actually made it seem bigger instead!

I got a solid white curtain for the window from Amazon for only $15  –

I went with one that had some character to it with the tie-up feature since it was plain white. I also found a solid white curtain rod, as well as a white shower curtain rod. This gray and cream rug matched the wall color perfectly, gave the room more warmth and texture, and best of all was only $12 at Target!

My favorite thing I found for this bathroom though is this beautiful wooden cathedral window frame from Hobby Lobby ($25) –

The white contrasts beautifully with the gray walls, and the distressed parts are gray to tie in with the accent colors. These navy blue and gray hand towels brought a little more color to this part of the bathroom. Much better than the lone butterfly and the dust-collecting greenery that was hanging here before!

My mom hated the hanging light fixture that was above her vanity, but I told her to give it a chance until after I was finished. Now that it is against a different backdrop, she loves it!

This is a very small bathroom compared to master bathrooms in newer homes, but changing the colors and getting rid of all the clutter has made it feel a little bigger.

And now when you walk in, your eyes are no longer drawn to the ugly blue sink and bathtub, because they actually look like they belong there.

This bathroom project took only a day to complete, and the total cost for everything, including 2 gallons of paint (gray for walls and white for linen closet door and vanity), was only around $200! The transformation is even more unbelievable in person – it feels so warm and clean now when you walk in. I enjoyed doing this so much for my mom, and she is so happy with it that she plans to let me “update” her entire house now one room at a time! I’m so excited to start on the next room!

Here are a few before and after pictures next to each other so you can really see the difference –

I hope this has given you some inspiration for your own home, and showed you that it doesn’t take a lot of money to make a huge impact on a room. My mom is so thankful to me for her new bathroom, but I am just as thankful to her for allowing to “be” Joanna Gaines for a day!

Thanks ya’ll!

– Nikki