A Board Games and Brunch Bridal Shower for my bestest best friend!

This weekend I was absolutely thrilled to host a bridal shower for my best friend in the whole world- Miss Danae Sparkman! (soon to be Nelson :) ). It was hosted in Stephenville for a younger, more relaxed crowd and we had a greeaaaat time.

When you came in, the first stop was the guest book! There was an ornately framed engagement picture of Danae and Clay, a lovely arrangement of white and yellow daisies and orange carnations. The theme quote was also framed there- "Love is a game that two can play and both win." -Eva Gabor

Notice the signage! I worked hard to design labels made with Scrabble tiles- all other font is Girls Are Weird from dafont.com!

In the sitting room, we set up a faux-to booth- with a backdrop held over the fireplace by two oversized "Scrabble letters" (for Danae and Clay), s

ome instructions for the pictures, and flowers!

In the dining area, we hung a banner that said "Love is sweet" and put up our tissue paper poms!

On the serving side table, there were more tissue paper poms, and stacks of board games. Atop one stack were oversized "Scrabble tiles" that I painted and on the other was another flower arrangement!

We ate and played games in the living room. There was a matching banner that read welcome and the rest of the tissue paper poms.

We gathered the generous gifts from guests in the living room.

We also displayed the super cute favors here! I'm sad I didn't take a picture of the actual favor, but they were magnets made out of Scrabble letters, spelling out words like LOVE, TRUE, or WISH.

Danae's seat was specially decorated!

We played two fun games- first Wedding Candy Land! Danae drew a color and had to answer a question correctly to continue on the board. Each color had a different category of question including- her fiancé, their relationship, wedding tradition/culture, her parents' courtship/wedding, and household knowhow. For every wrong answer, she had to add a piece of bubblegum to her mouth... so it got pretty hard to answer by the end! But she did very well :)

We also played Wedding Taboo! I printed out homemade Taboo cards and all the words somehow related to weddings or love. Everyone got to play and it ended up being a VERY close game.

We also had a fun faux-to booth!

I was VERY lucky to have such amazing help preparing the brunch for the shower too! Let me show you our spread. We had a waffle station, complete with two waffle irons, butter and syrup, peanut butter, and whipped cream and fruit.

We also had a breakfast taco buffet with yummy tortillas, eggs, potatoes, sausage, bacon, cheese and salsa. Mmmmm!

And Clay's mom brought a fantastic fruit tray!

And there were some fantastic desserts as well- strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, red velvet whoopie pies, and vanilla cake balls! (I sadly did not not get a close up of the cake balls- bad me!)

To drink, we had hot coffee, milk, orange juice, and punch. I loved the pitchers we used for the drinks!

notice our pretty, striped paper straws? love.

And here's the full table spread- it came together so nicely and everyone complimented how well everything came together. For my first bridal shower, I'd say it was a success. I am so happy for Danae and Clay and am super pumped for their wedding this summer!

Tutorials for the cake stands, tissue paper poms, and such to come!

Photo Booth Fun!

On Valentine's Day, our youth group put on a banquet for the married couples in our church. One of the activities was a Faux-to Booth! I was a little nervous to take it on myself but seeing it on other wedding and party blogs inspired me.

So first, for the backdrop, I bought several yards of fabric. If you go this route, I suggest you iron it. I'm lazy and it didn't look terrible. Then, I just used push pins to attach it to the wall. If I'd had more time and money I might have created a pvc pipe frame or even used a shower curtain or wallpaper.

We set up a digital camera on a tripod and it was good to go! All I had to do was add props. I got some stiff felt and 20 cent dowels and make moustaches, lips and glasses. The project literally took me ten minutes to cut out the shapes and hot glue them to the rods. Add in some silly hats, tiaras and feather boas and we had a party!

Look how easy everything came together!

I was nervous that none of the adults would want to be silly on camera but I was SO WRONG! Unfortunately I don't have any of those pictures, but even the older adults were hamming it up for the camera :)

The best prop of the night, for sure, was the chalkboard speech bubble- another super easy project! I bought a sheet of foam board- maybe $3 at Hobby Lobby- and a can of Chalkboard spray paint which was about $5. I traced the shape of a speech bubble and then cut it out with a box cutter. I then sprayed it down with several coats of chalkboard paint. After it fully dried, I rubbed the side of the chalk all over the surface to prime it and it was good to go! It turned out so cute and is now a permanent fixture in our youth room!

Have you ever created a faux-to booth?? What did you use as a backdrop or for props?