Storybook Baby Shower

Saturday's shower was a baby one and so much fun! The mother to be requested that in lieu of a card to bring a children's book (new or used), so we went with a Story Book theme. I have been wanting to do one of these showers, so was excited when Chelsey told me she would like to have books for their son's library.

Chelsey didn't have a color theme, so we went with blue and brown and LOTS of books. This was a morning shower with a light lunch served after she opened her gifts.

To begin with, I created this for her invite. I made a library card holder and then typed the info in word onto the printable library card file. This was so much fun to create and perfect for this shower. The pretty blue ribbon is from May Arts. (I whited out the addresses and phone numbers)

Table as you walk in. Silly me didn't take a picture of the whole table. These old books and figurines are mine. A great way to save money when doing showers is to shop in your own home.

Shoes are my husband's baby shoes, blocks I made for decoration and then also gave to the mother-to-be as a gift.

To sign in, the ladies signed this little Dr. Seuss Book "Oh the Places You'll Go".

Each of the tables had books on them. I just took a picture of this one. This is my book and bear.

I actually set up 5 tables. Only 4 were seen here. We had 6 chairs at each table and ended up having 30 ladies, so that was perfect.

For the food table, we picked books with food themes: (sorry some of the pictures are a little blurry)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: bbq meatballs

The Very Hungry Caterpillar: fruit kabobs

If you Give a Moose a Muffin: blueberry and poppy seed mini muffins

Peter Rabbit: bread in the shape of a rabbit with dip in it's tummy and veggies around it

Peanut Butter and Cupcake: peanut butter cupcakes

I thought this idea was super fun for a story book themed shower. Another frugal tip...save and wash out tin cans and wrap with designer papers.

(You can click on the photos to see a larger view.)

Muffins were blueberry and poppy seed.

Notice the bread is a bunny. I can't find the link where I got the idea, but was so thankful one of the gals that helped is a baker.

You can't see in the can, but there are gummy worms. 

Punch is blue Hawaiian Punch

The table "skirt" was used tearing apart old books that were going to be thrown out. Some of the pages were damaged, but I was able to use them any way. I took one of our newspapers and taped the edges together, then taped the book pages just at the top edge of each page starting at the bottom so that the pages kind of flowed. I love how it turned out and that it was a very "green" project.

I also used some of the book pages to create this wreath as well. The back of the wreath is very heavy cardboard that the Post Office gets when they get in their supply of postage stamps. We live in such a small community, that the PO gal knows me and saves them for me.

Ideas, Inspiration and recipes:
theme: storybook
invites: library card and holder from Cutting Cafe
book page wreath: Pinterest
baby book game
book page table skirt
fork idea
blocks svg cutting file- Silhouette Store
alphabet cutting file- Cutting Cafe
(I would have used Cutting Cafe's block file, but when I updated my Silhouette, it won't let me scale and I wanted the blocks to be 2.5". If anyone knows how to do this with the new update, please let me know. I like the strength of  Cutting Cafe's blocks much better)

I made the peanut butter cupcakes using this recipe. I doubled the frosting recipe too like she mentions below.

brownie buckeye cupcakes

Serves 36

Batter

• 12-16 miniature peanut butter cups
• 1 box Duncan Hines® Milk Chocolate Premium Brownie Mix
• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 c water
• 1/2 c oil

Icing

• 1/2 c creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 c butter, softened
• 2 c powdered sugar, sifted
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla
• 1/8 tsp salt

Topping

• Peanut Butter
• Powdered sugar
• 12-14 miniature peanut butter cups

Ganache (from MyBakingAddiction)

• 4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped into very small pieces
• 1/2 c heavy whipping cream
• 2 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp light corn syrup
• 2 tbsp vanilla

Instructions

• 1
  Preheat oven to 350°F. Place paper baking cups in each muffin cups. Remove foil and cups from candy pieces. Set aside.
• 2
  Prepare brownie mix as described on box to make cakey brownies using the eggs, water and oil. Fill each up about 2/3 full with batter. Place 1 unwrapped candy piece, upside down, on top of batter in each cup. Lightly tap piece down into batter.
• 3
  Bake 23 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cup comes out almost clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pan. Place on wire rack; cool completely.
• 4
  Make icing by placing peanut butter and butter into medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and creamy; scrape bowl. Add powdered sugar, milk, vanilla and salt. Beat on low speed 1 minute; scrape bowl. Beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy.
• 5
  Spread about 2 tablespoons of icing on each cupcake leaving the edge un-iced. Prepare ganache: in a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the heavy cream until very hot, but not boiling.
• 6
  Place chocolate pieces in a heat safe bowl. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes. Whisk the cream and chocolate until smooth and thoroughly combined. Whisk in the honey, corn syrup, and vanilla. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes.
• 7
  Do not let the glaze sit for too long or it will harden up before you spoon it over the frosting. Spoon the glaze on the tops of the frosted cupcakes, allowing it to drip down the sides a little bit. Don’t add too much glaze or it will drip all over your liners.
• 8
  For topping, combine peanut butter and powdered sugar, enough of each to make a crumb topping. Sprinkle over ganache drizzled cupcake. Top each cupcake with a peanut butter cup. Store cupcakes in the refrigerator. Remove them to room temperature one hour before serving.

Notes

• [My 2 Cents]
• Since I like to generously frost my cupcakes, one batch of the icing wasn't enough. So I doubled it. Doubling it allowed all of my cupcakes to be equally frosted quite generously.

tried and tasty http://triedandtasty.com/

The meatballs is my SIL's recipe. Comes out great every time!

Vicki's BBQ Meatballs

3 lb ground beef

2 c. quick oatmeal

1/2 t. garlic powder

1 t. pepper

1 - 13 oz. evaporated milk

2 eggs

1 c. chopped onion

2 t. salt

2 t. chili powder

Mix together and shape into balls. Approximately 18 large or 50-60 small. Place in a 9" x 13" greased pan. Cover with sauce.

Sauce

2 c. ketchup

3/4 - 1 cup brown sugar (I use the lesser amount as I don't like it too sweet)

2 T. Liquid Smoke

1/2 t. garlic powder

1/2 c. chopped onion

Mix the ingredients above well.

After covering meatballs, bake at 350° uncovered 1 hr for large meatballs and 30-45 minutes for small ones (depending on how small you make them) or until done.

**If you don' have Liquid Smoke, substitute with 2 T. Worcestershire & 1/3 c. BBQ sauce

I have a week off for Easter and then 7 showers, 7 weeks in a row, so stay tuned for more ideas as each one is different.