"in the air" baby shower

One of my closest friends is having a baby this month!! A few weeks ago we threw her a baby shower.  The theme of her nursery is "up in the air," so we went with the same for the shower.  I volunteered myself for centerpiece duty, and here's what I made:

I started with a 10 inch paper lantern (on clearance- under $2 each at Target), and attached it to a mason jar with lollipop sticks and hot glue.  Next, I glued string around the lantern, and covered the neck of the jar with ribbon.  To make the banner, I cut triangles from teal, light blue, and silver glitter cardstock, then glued them to a loooooooong piece of crochet thread.

To make it more hot air balloon-y, I wanted a flame.  I bought battery-operated tea lights to put on each mason jar.  Looking back, it makes it look a bit like a baby bottle.  Whoops!  (or maybe that's a good thing for a baby shower??)

I folded about 120 paper airplanes for the tables, and hand-punched cloud confetti from more of that silver glitter paper.

My friend's mom made this sweet diaper cake. Honestly, I don't really understand the whole diaper cake thing, but I must admit this might be the best one I've seen.

On the morning of the shower, I decided I wanted to give a handmade gift.  I was so busy with the decorations, that I didn't sew a plushie or design a custom book or anything!  Literally 30 minutes before it was time to leave, I painted this hot air balloon (it was loosely based on a painting I saw online....sorry I can no longer find the link!).  I then quickly painted the Boston skyline onto a separate piece of watercolor paper, cut it out. and stuck it down.

Luckily Dave was at Target when I had this crazy idea to do a painting, and I was able to catch him before he checked out so he could grab a frame.  Once he got home, I popped it in, and drove off to the shower!

We put it on a music stand near the gifts :)


Of course the card had to match the "in the air" theme, so here's what I made:

Hope you have a great night!