Owl Themed Baby Shower

So thanks to Pinterest I have been wanting to throw a party and try out some of my new fun ideas, and new fun baking items. My friend Emily is prego, and no one in the neighborhood was doing a shower, so I hopped on the perfect excuse. Emily and I walk or do water aerobics together in the mornings, and it has been tons of fun getting to know her! Here's a peak at the shower I threw. Let me just say that once guests started to arrive I set my camera down, and did not pick it back up (oops), so no pics of the actual party happening! But we all know the food is what I care about most anyway.

These are my awesome donuts. I bought a donut maker the other day and thought I might try making "healthy" donuts, like muffins shaped like donuts so my kids would get tricked into eating them. (Derrick thinks the only food group worth attempting is sugar, not even a real food group). These are not the healthy variety, just a recipe out of the booklet that came, frosted with leftover royal icing from my sugar cookies (coming soon). But I thought they turned out great!


Then there are the cake pops of course. I made vanilla cake, and used blue chocolate discs to make these lovely little owls. Her nursery is owl themed, and I LOVED making these. I made them at night while watching shows with Brett, using an extension cord, and a big plastic storage bin as a makeshift table. So cute.

I found this cute little owl stamp at Robert's craft, and stamped some ring tags and tied them to mason jars for chocolate milk, and inserted blue straws. I meant to take a close up picture, but never go that far. I also bought the little after dinner mints that have blue "its a boy" packaging.

Here I have the brown Owl cake pops. They are chocolate, dipped in milk chocolate! Yum! I used a different sprinkle for their beaks, and thought they turned out cuter than the other ones.

 

 I have a friend who is always making amazing sugar cookies, so I thought I would attempt it. I ran out of time so I bought a mix for the cookie part, and overcooked some of them. Ooops. I also could not find an owl shaped cookie cutter, so I bought a Halloween set, and used the Cauldron cutter flipped upside down, and just made the horns (cauldron legs) pointier by pinching them a bit. I thought it turned out great. I made Martha Stewart's Royal Icing, and when I went to frost couldn't find the frosting bottles I bought to make these cookies. I ran to the store to get new ones, and the store I needed was closed, so I ended up buying bottles that are for hair stuff I think, and made them work. It was crazy, but I loved how they turned out, especially since it was my first ever attempt at Royal icing. I used Wilton candy eyes for the eyes, star shaped sprinkles for the beaks, and used the feathering technique to create the body look for the owls using lines of different colored frosting. Fun project!

 I of course do not think a party is a party without cupcakes, and my favorite is peanut butter chocolate, so pulled a prebaked bag of the chocolate cupcakes out of my freezer (baked them a few weeks ago), and whipped up some frosting. Did not have enough, so I cut up a few brownies my mother in law had brought over to help fill up the stand! Again, I have only one word...YUM!

While the dessert table was over-flowing, don't worry I served real food too. I had a great variety of fruit, with blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, grapes, watermelon, and honeydew.

 I had a veggie tray and pickles, olives, and some dips for the carrots, cauliflower, cucumber, celery, and tomato.

Oh I had to sneak in a picture of the completed desert table, with chocolate milk, lemonade, and water (although I did not screw the spickitt on the water jug very well, and ended up dumping it part way through because it was leaking too much.

I had told the ladies they could bring their kids if they did not have a sitter, so I pulled a couple of my previously made pizza crusts out of the freezer and made one pepperoni, and one barbeque chicken pizza, which I forgot about and overcooked just a tad!

More fruit!

I had a three pot crock pot cooker which I made pulled pork (BBQ), Little Smokies in BBQ, and Meatballs in BBQ. I set out some rolls in case people wanted to make a sandwich. I bought these due to lack of time.

And being my parent's daughter I had to have a salad. I decided to go for a summer spinach salad, and I added slivered almonds, craisins, bacon pieces, and dried pears, with a balsamic dressing. Yum!

This is Emily, the shower was for her! We played a few games, and I had onesies and fabric paint so that everyone could decorate a onesie for her baby! They turned out cute. I should have taken a picture, but after all the work I went too, I guess I am entitled to feel too lazy to get up and go take a picture! haha