Planning a Unique Baby Shower

A baby shower is a fun and meaningful way to celebrate a new addition to the family. Incorporating personalized touches and unique ideas is a fabulous way to make the event a truly personal one. Here are 10 tips on planning a unique baby shower:

1) Decide on a theme. Your shower can have any baby related theme -- rubber duckies, storks, bottles, pacifiers, or diapers -- or a color theme if the baby's gender is known, a children's character like Elmo or Winnie the Pooh.

2) Invitations are your first chance to make a great impression on your guests, so take some time to create invitations that match your party theme. Tiny Prints is one of my favorite places for baby shower invitations -- you can add photos and customize text on any of their gorgeous designs.

3) Coordinate presents with other guests so that duplicate items are minimized. For example, you could assign each guest a time of day in advance, and ask them to bring gifts the mom or baby could use at that time. You can let them choose either am or pm, or assign them an am or pm time. Examples: 8 PM could be pajamas, 10 pm could be bubble bath, 8 am could be an outfit, and so on.

4) Instead of a plain old guest book, have an advice book where guests can write down their favorite piece of parenting advice.

5) Hang a clothesline in the party room and ask guests to bring baby clothes as presents. Hang all the baby clothes on a clothesline -- the presents will do double duty as decor!

6) Serve funny snacks like pickles and ice cream, spaghetti sauce on toast, marshmallows and pretzels, and other combinations that a pregnant woman might crave. Don't forget to include some "normal" snacks as well :)

7) Party games are a great way for your guests to mingle and have fun. Scratch off games, personalized advice cards, and guessing the size of the mom-to-be's belly are fun activities. Reward your guests with thoughtful game prizes and funny loser awards.

8) Baby showers tend to be pastel-hued, girly affairs; for your unique shower, why not include the dad-to-be as well? Have a couples birthday party to "mourn" the end of the parents-to-be's Kid Free Years.

9) Find photos of the mom and dad to be when they were children, "morph" them using photo editing software, and present the parents-to-be with a photo of what their new baby might look like.

10) Send you party guests home with party favors personalized with the baby's due date.


Disclosure: I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Tiny Prints blogging program, making me eligible to get a Tiny Prints gift code worth $50, plus 25 FREE Tiny Prints greeting cards—a total gift value of $149.75! For more information on how you can participate, click here. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.