Edgar Allen Poe Baby Shower - Guest Post

I asked my friend Heather Gardner from River City Cupcakes to Guest Post on a recent Baby Shower that she threw. This is such a fun idea and could just as easily be a Halloween Party:

 

    I was so excited when Jen asked me to guest blog on Chocolates for Breakfast! Jen is the "Ultimate Party Planner" so what a compliment it was to be asked.
    My amazing friend Sarah is about to have her 4th baby and since it's so close to Halloween we decided that an Edgar Allen Poe theme was in order. I love that she has such a fun sense of style and adventure!

We went through a few ideas of how we would pull off this Halloween baby shower and then it just hit me to search Pinterest for Edgar Allen Poe. Bam! Exactly what I was looking for. Elegant and a little creepy, not so much outrageous goblins and ghouls.

    We knew we wanted to keep the color scheme black and white and that really helped to narrow down what we needed. Most of the decorations were things we either already had in our homes or things we bought from the Dollar Tree. A couple exceptions were the ornament blanks, decorative bottles from Hobby Lobby, and some odds and ends from Target.

    The first thing I did was make some table top trees to display the ornaments. I spray painted some plastic planters from Dollar Tree and some branches I trimmed from my plum tree. I weighted the planter with a couple large rocks and then positioned the branches between them for stability. To hold everything together I used a can of spray foam insulation (available at Walmart for under $4/can) to cement it all in place. **Be careful when using spray foam! If it gets on your skin you will have a heck of a time getting it off. Lots of hot water and layers of skin later my hands are finally looking close to normal.** Spray foam doubles in size as it dries so be sure not to over fill your pot or you will have lots of trimming to do!

 

Once the foam was dry I spray painted that black and then used spray tack to adhere some Spanish moss to it. Voila! A lovely table top tree.

    Next it was on to the ornaments. Can I just say how FUN these were to make?! I didn't have a bird stamp so I created my own stencil by hand drawing a bird onto a piece of cardstock and cutting it out with my CutterBee razor. Then I used my VersaMark embossing pad with the stencil laid over it to transfer the glue to the ornament. Sprinkle your choice of embossing powder onto the image and shake away the excess. Heat set and you're ready to go! I added the word Nevermore using a paint pen and finished it off with ribbon. These became one of the favors the guests got to take home from the party.

    I also made little sour cream pouches filled with candy for favors too. (I really have no idea what they're called but they always remind me of the sour cream packs they have at Wendy's so that's what I call them). **Jen's Note - Find a tutorial on how to make Sour Cream containers here
    The main focal point for the party was the set up of the dining room table. This is where we arranged the tree, decorations, and sweet treats. We used period books to give height to different elements of the design and keep it visually interesting. Our sweets consisted of frosted bird and web cookies, bat wing Nutter Butters, ghostly brownie bites, Nutella fluffy dip with strawberries, and Adipose pops (because we are both lovers of Doctor Who).

 

           Our other set up area was the granite bar and this is where we kept the drinks, savory snacks, and crudités. I loved how fun and easy it was to make the "bone rolls". It's a can of crescent rolls that I pushed the seams together to form into a large rectangle. I then used my pizza cutter to make long strips of dough which I folded in half and twisted before tying into knots at either end. Brush with a bit of melted butter and sprinkle with grated Parmesan and garlic salt then bake as per package directions. So simple and so good. Just my style!

We didn't want to force baby shower games on anyone so there was a self service game area. We had play dough out to create mini babies and also a roll of ribbon to cut how much they thought was needed to fit around Sarah's belly. A lot of people played the games when they wanted to and the no stress style fit right in with what Sarah wanted.

     It was a great night and the guests commented on how great the food and decorations were. Now if only there was another party I could start planning!

 Thanks so much Heather! As you can see, she is a pretty amazing party planner herself. Visit her site for amazing cupcakes and other goodies!:
 Heather Gardner is the owner and operator of RiverCityCupcakes.com and has been featured in the KCRA A-List top 5 for the past 3 years.