A Nautical Baby Shower

Here is how we conquered our nautical baby shower. Since my husband and I both work for a Ferry and Freight service company out of Michigan and that we were having a boy. We just felt like it was a good theme, that a little boy would enjoy. We had a great free venue at our fingertips, since my husband happens to captain the cruise and freight vessel. We even got the chance to go out for a little ride even though it was chilly. 

Sacre Bleu our vessel for the day. Here you can see our set up and that it's a bit chilly here in Northern Michigan.

 Let's start off with decorations. Here is something that was pretty easy for us to make and assemble. What you will need is:

• Construction Paper 
• Glue 
• Hole Punch 
• Ribbon, string or twine
• Letters - you could print them out or write them on by hand - find one you like the best. 
  

   

   

   

  Our Welcome Aboard Sign 

  
  

  To assemble the sign, we took our construction paper and cut out 16 triangles. One for each letter of welcome aboard and three as spacers. We then had cut out our letters and glue them to each triangle.We found letters that were a free print out that we liked and we glued our letters on to our triangles short side at the top. We didn't really have a color pattern but you could make one with the construction paper colors that you have to work with. After gluing on all the letters we began to assemble the sign. We first punched holes in the short side of the triangle one in each corner. Then we put the letters on in reverse order. We used Twine and had it on a spool so putting it on in reverse worked best for us. After punching a stringing all the letters we tied a loop at both ends to keep the sign from sliding along on the twine since we were out in the wind. 

Diaper Cakes and wreath we used for decoration. 

 We kept the decorations simple. We used my ivory linen's from our wedding and my sister created some cute little diaper cakes. You can find instructions on how to make one from Crafty Chic here: http://craftychicsblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/diaper-cake-building-tiers.html   She also found some great little nautical pack of scrap booking items from Michael's that she used to dress them up along with the normal diaper cake decorations of lotions, socks, shampoo, Desitin and toys. We also spruced up the table with some simple black frames that I had gotten on clearance from Kohl's and used our ultrasound pictures for a little something personal on the table.

here is an example of the table decorations (we kept it simple and also the clothes line in the back) 

 

 

We had this great idea from seeing other party decorations with the baby clothesline. Most everything we seen had either small doll clothes hanging as decorations or actual baby clothes. We decided to do one additional thing and make it a game for everyone. We had everyone write down a piece of advice for the me (mother-to-be) then they would hang them on the clothesline with small clothesline pins. (we got our pins at Michael's, but you can also find them at Walmart and Joann's) My sister free handed a baby onesie which is what we used to write the advice on with black Sharpies.

Our Cake and cupcakes and the onesies advice station (onesies are in the blue basket) 

Cakes and Cupcakes

My Mother in Law made our cake and cupcakes. The cupcakes were chocolate with a vanilla buttercream colored blue and the cake was vanilla with a vanilla buttercream colored blue. The topper and decoration were all made out of white chocolate using molds - similar to these here: http://www.amazon.com/CK-Products-Anchor-Sail-Chocolate/dp/B003QP38G4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1447172492&sr=8-4&keywords=nautical+chocolate+molds

Our drink station - red, white and blue and candy bar

Here is our drink station and candy bar. We have kept up with the nautical theme and did red, white and blue drinks. A sangria for the adults (red), water for the everyone (white) and also blue punch for everyone (blue). The candy bar consisted of any candy that we found online and at the dollar tree that was blue and white. We had gumballs, candy sharks, suckers, m & m's, twizzlers and jelly beans. We used clear containers that I had at my house to put them in and cellophane bags from the dollar tree. We also got small scoops and tongs from the dollar tree to serve them. Everyone was asked to make their own bag with whatever candy they would like and take it home.

Our food table and me.

We kept our food pretty simple. Fruit and veggies trays, a feta cheese dip, small sandwiches, jello cups and fruit Kabobs.

Our fruit Kabobs

The fruit Kabobs we made using wooden skewers usually found in the grilling section of the store. We stuffed them with strawberries, Blueberries and marshmallows that we found on Clearance, they are stars because it was from the fourth of July and we thought they were cute.

Jello Cups

You will need:

• small clear plastic cups (4oz) 
• Blue Raspberry Jello - 2 large boxes 
• mandarin oranges - about 4 - peeled and sections separated 
• toothpicks 
• white paper 
• clear tape

First we made our jello, poured it into the plastic cups and let it set. We obtained our cups from Walmart. I made the Jello in a large measuring cup, which made it so much easier for me to pour it into the cups since it had a spout. If not maybe using a soup ladle might make it easier and less messy than pouring from a bowl. We but them in the fridge to set up, as soon as they were set we put the rest of the decorations on. We started with the sail, we cut small sail out of plain white printing paper and taped them on the toothpicks, keep the sails in size with your toothpicks and oranges you will need to be able to stick them far enough in your orange so they stand up to look like boats.

The kids getting to drive the boat while out on our cruise.

 Hope you enjoyed our shower if you have any questions or comments please leave me a note. Thanks for reading!