Baby Shower Bliss

In my previous post, I mentioned that the season of spring has sprung. Want to know what other season has sprung? Baby season! It seems like everyone we know has just had a baby, is about to have a baby, or has just found out that they are going to have a baby! Babies everywhere! 

I was honored to get to participate in planning a baby shower for my great friend Lindsey! Today I'm going to share the decoration I made. It looks like a piñata- and very well could be with a few simple modifications to the process! I was a little nervous to commit to making this because I wasn't sure how long it would take. But once I said it out loud and told the other girls what I was making, I had no choice but to carry on and hope it wasn't a major fail. 

There were a few piñata how-to's online that I got inspiration from. And for a brief moment I thought about making it a piñata... maybe full of airplane bottles for all of us guests who were not pregnant. But the thought of a flying bat, blindfolds, and pregnant women just didn't seem like a good idea! 

Here's what I did:

Step 1- Find big cardboard boxes that are in decent shape. I got mine at work and everyone was confused as to why I needed them. When I answered, "I'm making some baby shower decorations" they looked even more confused. 

Step 2- Search the entire town for baby pink crepe paper. Yeah, impossible. I gave up. 

Step 3- Settle for white crepe paper and buy 2 rolls of it... not 4. I always err on the side of having more rather than less. But now I have 3 1/2 rolls of crepe paper that I don't know what to do with. 

Step 4- Deconstruct your boxes carefully. 

Step 5- Trace the letter of choice onto a large piece of one of the boxes. My letter was an M. 

Step 6-Cut the M out. 

Step 7- Place the cut out M on top of another large piece of box and trace it. 

Step 8- Cut out the second M. 

**Note- if you'll be hanging this up, you may want to take this opportunity to poke some holes in the back and add a hanger of some sort. I poked two holes on each side of the back M and inserted a zip tie into each to make a loop. We hung the M on command hooks at the shower. Worked great!

Step 9- Cut 3-4" strips of cardboard that will act as the sides of the letter and will join each M together. 

Step 10- Tape away! I taped from the outside and the inside. I used masking tape, duct tape would probably be much stronger. 

Step 11- Keep taping!!! There is never too much tape! 

Step 12- Admire your creation and think about how beautiful it will look once it is covered up... because truthfully, it looks a little rough right now. 

Step 13- Cut a bazillion strips of crepe paper to cover every single part of the letter. You will take a piece, fold it in half lengthwise, and make multiple snips along it to create the frayed look. 

Step 14- Use Elmer's glue to glue each strip onto the letter, slightly overlapped so there are no spaces. Warning: this part takes forever!!! However long you think it is going to take... triple that. That's probably a more accurate guess. 

An the finished product (along with the beautiful mommy-to-be & company):

It was a beautiful and perfect day!