Baby Shower Bonanza, The Last post: Games and De-brief.

The actual Baby Shower was a couple of weeks ago now.

I flew to Canberra, all by myself, kid and husband free, and spent  a few day with my sister. These were our last moments together, just us girls, for what will probably be quite some time.

We visited my parents in their little country town on the day of a football game, watched a chick flick while eating home delivered noodles,I spent a lazy morning washing my hair, we Baby Showered, we shared pizza with friends, I cooked a meal for my sister and her husband and then I was home again. It went all too fast, but was relaxing and lovely.

The Shower went beautifully.
The Thank you gifts looked beautiful on the table, the venue was lovely, the food and champagne delicious and the time just flew.

That was a problem. It turns out, I over scheduled.

Originally, I had just two games planned; a Guess the Tea game where guests passed unlabelled tea bags around and tried to guess the flavours, and a Royal Baby Quiz; a quiz written by my mum that was REALLY hard. These two games took a bit of time and would've been plenty to do... remember it's customary to open gifts during the shower too!

However, we also had the "Guess the Belly Circumference", The "Boy/Girl Guessing Jar" and the book of advice. At this particular shower, I didn't need the belly measuring or the advice book at all... 

C'est la Vie!

Lots of chatting...

Lots of lovely food... (If you're in Canberra, check out The Burbury - gorgeous view)

and it all looked pretty. I'm including the Champagne in that statement!

Oh, and there were prizes too...

Tea Cup with infuser and tea sample

Tea Cup and saucer with infuser and tea sample

The "just-in-case" extras, infusers and boxes of tea

And that concludes the Baby Shower Bonanza.

Needless to say, I had a ball designing and making all the elements.

But, I had an even better time celebrating with my sister.

Congratulations Sadie. Can't wait to meet the little monster.

xx

MC

Baby Shower Bonanza, Part 4, Packaging

 Remember those beautiful tea bags and sugar cubes?

 They need to be presented in something.

Something equally beautiful. These will sit at the place of each of your guests. This gives them a hint of the kind of soiree in store.

This time, I decided to go with clear boxes, that I could decorate and tie with a ribbon. Let's keep it simple people.

Cut some co-ordinating paper to size, dot with strong, double sided tape, and wrap. If you use the skinny, cheap stuff you had left over, the paper will pop right off the plastic. Live and learn people. The first one I did had the paper join in the middle, but from then on I had the join at the very edge at the back. You can now barely see it.

Adding the seal from the invitations ties evey thing in nicely.

Note the Madame Clochette mug in the background!

 And then just keep going and going.

Place the sugar cubes in a little bag of their own.

I'm pulling this odd, smug face because in the other photos I look cranky and double chinned.

This one is perfect.

Repeat. And Repeat.

Pop a packet of sugar in the box, and add teabags. It ended up looking nicer if I held all the tags together and then placed them in the box, just so.

Now tie it all up with a matching ribbon. To get the perfect bow, with even ends, make one side longer than the other. How you tie it will depend on which side needs to be longer.

Demonstrating the craziness...

I'm mainly including this pic because I like the over exposure and my nails.

 I got a little excited using my mini tripod again, so I apologise for all the ribbon tying pics. I know you know how to tie a bow!

 

Repeat, and repeat...

Soldiers ready for combat?

After all that faffing, a gratuitous shot of the bloody bow...

This pic wasn't taken until after this little one had been to Canberra and back, so it's looking a little frayed. Still pretty!

 
 And Voila! Thank you gifts, party favours, or bonbon-whatsits.

Next up, a guessing game in a JAR!
Can you imagine my delight?

Salut!
MC

Baby Shower Bonanza, Part 3: Handmade Sugar cubes

Now things are getting really nutty.

Handmade Sugar Cubes...?

I know. But not only are they beautiful, I needed a little something to fill up my boxes, becauseof course I never find exactly what I want when I need it.

Who am I kidding. They had me at Beautiful.

Once again, I have Pinterest to blame. I don't have the original pin because this was a surprise for Sadie. The teabags were her idea, even though she thought they were too much trouble, so I wanted to have a little something as a surprise. I need sugar with my tea. So, when I came across this idea, I was sold.

There are a couple of different ways to do this, some people cut out shapes with cookie cutters, but to me, that seemed like too much faffing, with too much room for disaster. So, I used chocolate molds.

Of course, I was too silly to get pictures, even though I could only make 15 at a time, and of course, I made 120.

This is what 120 sugar cubes (o.k, hearts) look like...

In sectioned containers so I can count easily.

Pretty, right?

FIDDLY and TIME CONSUMING! Oh. My. Gods.

But worth it.

*sigh*

All you need to do is mix 1/4 cup sugar with one teaspoon of water and a tiny drop of food colouring.
This is what happens if you use too much food colouring.

The lighting makes them loo lighter than the fabulous, lurid teal they really are.

Now imagine that dissolved into your tea. Yuk!

Once you mix it up, it'll feel like damp sand. Spoon a teaspoon of the mix (so that each cube equals one teaspoon, of course!) into the mold and tamp down firmly. I used the fat end of a chopstick for this. Did I mention it was time consuming? Repeat, until all your spots are filled and pressed down. Pop them in the fridge, over night to be safe. Carefully push them out ( I used a silicon mold), they'll still need to dry out a bit, and, VOILA!

Repeat a million times. Chuck a tantrum when you accidentally get the mix wrong. Wonder why on earth you thought this would be a good idea. Congratulate yourself on such an awesome idea. Sigh a lot.

Then, behold the beauty.

Oh, and this is why you make a few extra...
  

Broken hearts

So, Teabags and Sugar Cubes done...

Now what to package them in?

Until next time,

MC

Baby Shower bonanza, Part 2: Handmade tea bags

And so it continues. Do join me for a little craziness in the form of Handmade Tea Bags.

Yes. Teabags. Made by me.

There are numerous versions on Pinterest, but this is the one that inspired me and gave me very simple directions. There are even free, printable tags.

Lia Griffith

 What I loved about this version is that the teabags look like someone actually made them, and with love. I know, sounds corny. But I am!

What I also love about these little bags, is that they're cheap to make. The muslin cost $2.50p/m, the tea, Melbourne Breakfast from T2 (Sadie's favourite) was $30 for 250g(which ended up giving me about 85 teabags) and the tags were made from scraps of the invitation paper.

One teaspoon (one you use to stir your tea, not a measuring spoon)

Gather and tie

Trim, and you're almost done.

These weren't hard to make. If you're good with your hands, they'll be easy. They're just fiddly, and time consuming.

I made 120 tea bags. I know.

120? Yes. There were 27 people on Sadie's guest list, so I made 30 invites, just in case she'd forgotten someone or decided that some Facebook friend was nice enough to come along. I'd decided to use plastic boxes to package them in, and so, to make it look generous and not stingy, four tea bags each was the plan. If you're using smaller packaging, you could certainly package 1,2 or 3 and they'd look gorgeous. (Keep an eye on the Madame Clochette Facebook page for a few different options soon).

Like in Lia's original post, these teabags would make a great Mothers Day gift, or you could even package up some "xmas" scented tea and give them as Xmas gifts.

Hmmm... That's a good idea.

Must remember that.

Next up in the Bonanza....

Handmade Sugar cubes.

A bientot!

MC