A Shower for Baby Dillon

So I think I have found my calling decorating for family baby showers.  We use karate studio for these functions as one of my uncles runs a karate dojo and is kind enough to let us use it.  It is a great open space but some times it needs something to be a bit more homey.  I do my best to decorate it to keep my mama cousins happy.

I asked my aunt if she wanted me to decorate a bit for the shower and if anyone was doing a "diaper cake".  I did my now traditional (I guess two showers makes a tradition) baby block baby name.  This time I used two tones of blue as I didn't have enough of either to do the name in full.  I try to do these things out of my more than ample stash!  I'm sure no other paper crafter has these issue having so much cardstock around.  Anyway, I think they are a great hit and fairly easy to do with my electronic die cutting machine.

As my policy to be completely honest about these things you will see with the decorations that are hanging there is a cute not so little umbrella in the center. I have to be honest that I attempted to make a mobile but the string the vines and animals were just too heavy for the cardstock umbrella, so I deconstructed it and used them separately. My wonderful son hung them from the soffet for me and did an excellent job staggering the heights (those animals have fronts and backs decorated). There is an elephant at the far end in case you are wondering - I did the best I could but the shower was staring at this point. LOL!

Alas, the diaper cake. I can't take all the credit. I had my mother roll the diapers. We kept them rolled with clothes pegs and then we put rubber bands around the "layers" and covered the layers with a couple of layers of freezer paper. I then lined some ribbon I had on hand with some double sided tape and placed it around the middle of the layers. The ribbon at the bottom of the layers is wired. Don't you just love that bow! I placed the animals all around to decorate it.

 

Now you are going to have to forgive me for a moment for sending you back up to the first picture to see that giraffe and then point out the one on the cake. Yes that giraffe on with the building blocks is nearly 2 feet tall - just how fun is that! And on the cake what about that double sided monkey on top?!  He is "attached" to a wooden skewer that I fed through the gaps in the layers.  Acutally I fed about three skewers through to help it all hold together.  Did you notice the all the vines on the mirror? There are loads - they are to cover the joins between the mirrors - my uncle even said they could stay up by my cousin wanted them for her baby book.

I enjoyed making these decorations so much but I'm not going to lie there are a lot of decorations and they took me 3 8+ hour sessions to complete and a few heartbreaking attempts that failed. And it definitely is not the "cheap" option. I'm not even going to add up the supplies because the joy I got from doing some special for my cousin was worth it. Thanks for looking.

Apologies for some of the "coding" making the page a bit wonky - I have done my best to clear it up.