Red Fish, Blue Fish (Dr. Seuss-themed) baby shower

Yesterday I hosted a baby shower for my friend Nancy. I decided several weeks ago to go with a Dr. Seuss theme. At one point, I thought I might make invitations, but then I discovered the One Fish, Two Fish invitations (on sale!) on seussland.com, and I couldn’t pass them up. I also didn’t have the time and money to invest into making invitations (not for almost 30 people.)

I knew after seeing another blogger’s Green Eggs & Ham theme, that I really wanted to go with a red and blue themed party. I found a fish candy mold on Amazon, and went to town making red fish and blue fish candies (the red were cinnamon and the blue were spearmint – I found the flavors at AC Moore. Michaels does not carry the different flavors.)

The M&Ms were a different story. I bought the red ones at AC Moore and Michaels (using 50% off coupons) but the blue were nearly impossible to find. I eventually learned that the Fresh Market carries three different blue chocolate candies, so I was okay, but AC Moore didn’t get another shipment of the candy. Michaels didn’t even carry the blue ones (and I found the red down in Florida.)

Speaking of Florida, I got the brilliant idea to find Hershey Kisses with the blue wrappers, and remembered the Kisses with macadamia nuts were in blue wrappers. As I mentioned last week, those didn’t work out well, but I did find some at K-Mart (regular Kisses) in blue wrappers, that actually said “Thank you” on the tags – they were for supporting the troops, and they were perfect!

The candy/food table:

I made a diaper cake, and the “decorations” included onesies, wash cloths, pacifiers, a teething ring and the dog on top.

Instead of games, I had everyone decorate onesies. I made 7 or 8 iron-on transfers before the party, and bought some fabric paints. I generally buy packs of onesies when I see them clearanced, so I had everything before I started planning the shower. I think the baby ended up with 10 or 11 onesies.

(The child now has a Carolina onesie, which I’m sure his dad – a NC State grad – is going to love.)

Finally, I decorated with pom-poms, which I found instructions for online. The pom-poms took only a couple of minutes to make (per pom-pom.) They were SO easy. And I loved them. Target coincidentally enough had some Dr. Seuss stuff in their dollar section last month, so I grabbed a book (it was 3 inches by 4 inches) and markers, and had everyone sign the book. I also used this book to keep track of the gifts.

Then I slacked off. I was writing all of the gifts down, and I got no more pictures. I should have handed my camera to someone to take pictures of Nancy opening stuff.

I think everything turned out great, and we have pounds of candy leftover. The fruit and vegetables, I’m not so concerned about because we’ll eat it, but we’re sending the candy to work this week. No need to eat it all ourselves!