when my friend told me she was pregnant i really wanted to do something nice for her: she’s a very generous person and deserved to have some spoiling! so with the help of a mutual friend, we threw a pretty little shower to celebrate the imminent arrival of her second beautiful boy!

unfortunately this could not be the lavish affair i envisioned: my savings are in direct contrast to how much i care for my friend, so this was to be a challenge in thriftiness! just as well my friend is a lover of vintage – it seemed fitting to theme the shower with a staple of all our childhoods: little golden books. i emailed out an invitation (excuse the top secret redacted parts!) to her guest list:

after one too many evenings “researching” baby showers on pinterest, i got off my butt and made some golden book bunting from a box of badly damaged books the awesome estelle donated to me. sure bunting is now ubiquitous but nothing says HEY YOU GUYS IT’S A PARTY! like bunting does.

seeing as most of my friend’s guests live on the opposite side of town to me, our mutual friend dani generously offered up her house. it was such a great room to base the party in – a mantlepiece made for an easy focal point/tableux and we pushed her dining table up against the fireplace for the buffet setting. the day of the shower was REALLY hot and i completely spaced out and didn’t take a full shot of the table, mantle etc. am i fired as a blogger? i was too busy sweating.

other decoration consisted of fresh flowers (a must, right?!) and my son’s little golden books (don’t worry – he got them back at the end of the day). i also made ‘showers’ of scalloped circles to hang down between the mantle and the buffet.

making lamingtons is especially fun when they’re pastel baby blocks! i cheated and bought a slab sponge (trust me, no one wants to eat a sponge i’ve made. i don’t do sponges, and i don’t do scones) then cut it into cubes, dipped each side in pastel colored icing glaze and coated in coconut. if you’re not familiar – lamingtons are generally chocolate or ‘pink’. don’t they look fuzzy and sweet? big love to deb for the vintage sheet table cloth.

we had fresh lemonade which was wonderful on such a hot day. i need to make this more often! i put 20 lemons through our juice extractor and added about a cup or more of honey. when we served it we mixed it with mineral water, so i suppose its more cordial-like than straight up juice. in conclusion: yum.

the next best thing to the cold rice paper spring rolls (which vanished in seconds) were the melon salad cups. don’t they look pretty? i had pastel melamine cups left over from my son’s alice in wonderland party 2 years ago, and at last i had an excuse to use a melon baller.  fresh chiffonade mint and a trio of melons and blueberries made this really refreshing and satisfying snack on such a hot day.

it was really fun to put this shower together – i love how much help i had from dani, and even my guy got to baking for me to help out!! he’s just learning to cook so thats a big deal! we didn’t have any activities or games. showers aren’t hugely part of the culture in australia and forcing people to craft or play game shows seemed a bit weird. it was great to just chat and catch up with everyone. most of all i’m proud of how nice the day turned out – it was really satisfying to put together something cute on such a tiny budget!

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