One of the best things about buying a home is that we get to host parties and it’s not all awkward telling people we live in the 3rd floor apartment anymore!  So any chance we get to host a get together, we jump in head first.  The downside is, I spend so much time getting everything ready that I often forget to take pictures!  I did remember to get a few pictures from Carlyn’s baby shower last week.  🙂  It was a low key event with a few close friends and some even brought delightful snacks to share!

I’m not crafty or great at baking, but I did manage to put together a cute cake with strawberry filling and a rough white icing.  I covered the top in gold sprinkles, too!  The pink treats were some of my favorite.  They were the sugar wafer cookies from the store and I dipped them in melted white chocolate and sprinkled gold sprinkles on top as well.

The doughnuts were made at the store (with love, I’m sure!), and I chopped up some veggies to save money on a veggie tray.  I added some almonds in a martini glass and some friends brought meatballs and some homemade salsa!  We went simple sweet tea, water, and coffee for drinks.  On each of the cups I printed “Willow” on kraft circle labels and adhered to the cup.  It was the easiest part of the whole planning process and added a big cute factor!  I went online to the Avery website to print labels and they had the gold dots template already made so I just uploaded the .png of the cake topper and clicked print!

For decorations I bought some handmade gold paper with a neat design on it from Michaels.  I used it in the backdrop as well as on the table top to give it some spice.  The paper flowers came unassembled Michael’s.  OH MY.  Just a heads up if you plan on doing paper flowers ever in the future… each of these had 22 pieces!  And the double sided tape they provided wasn’t enough to hold it together for long, so I ended up doing it all twice (hot glue is the key!).  They were absolutely worth it and received a million compliments, but just know what you’re getting yourself into first!

The cake topper and letter M on the wall were both a result of the Cricut Explore Air!  I got recently and have been playing around with it.  I’m not sure if I’m in love yet, but it certainly does a great job.  I also used it to make banners (that I forgot to take pictures of!).  One banner is in the background of the picture below, and the other is in the doorway of the wide room shot three pictures down.