Furloughed Time: Wedding Showers

Well, I hosted a wedding shower for my baby sister several weeks ago. I thought I would share some of the details here. My sister loves wine. No joke. Some might say she loves wine more than her soon-to-be husband ( ok, I said that, and i hope it isn't true). So there was no doubt I wanted wine incorporated into the theme.

Look at all that wine!

I think she was a little frustrated that I didn't send her an invite to her own shower but that's because there was a big surprise on it. I asked all the guests to bring a bottle of wine for the new bride but it wasn't that simple.

I supplied each guest with a hang tag for their wine bottle and each guest wrote a question on the hang tag that my sister and fiancé would have to answer together before they could drink the wine. Once everyone was settled we used these tags as an ice breaker.

Everyone introduced themselves, explained how they were connected to the bride, and then read their questions out loud. I was impressed by the questions, some were really good. Examples: how many kids do you want? Where do you want to travel together? Where will we be in 5 years? Who's your favorite aunt?

Our cousin, grandma, and aunt

We played a game that I thought I made up called, "He said. She said". Guests would have to guess if an answer to a question was his reply or her reply. We gave out mustaches for "he said" and lips for "she said". I thought I was a genius for coming up with this game but a one second search on the Internet will tell you otherwise! Apparently this game has been around for awhile and i'm not the genius that I thought I was. It still was fun. Thanks goes to another bridesmaid, Brittany, for making all the lips and mustaches!

My sweet baby. He'll grow into it!

Everyone had their own mugs with a paper straw and oreo truffles. You can find these straws everywhere right now, including Target. I bought these on etsy from Moresprinkledjoy because I wanted specific colors and the chevron pattern (most are stripes). I got some vinyl chalkboard at Michael's (on clearance!) and ran it through my die cut machine with the hearts print die cut from papertrey ink. Chalk pens are next to impossible to find in stores around here so I also bought that item on etsy from swigshoppe.

There was an Italian soda station where everyone everyone could make their own flavor. Italian sodas are easy, it is just flavored soda with a splash of half and half or creamer.

I got these for a steal at World market for only $1.99 each! Super sale. There was also a wine punch (of course, you saw that coming right?)

I loosely followed the recipe I found at the daily meal so that I got the quantity of alcohol to punch correct for a large group. I also bought my wine from trader joes, aka "two buck chuck", their brand is called Charles Shaw and is literally under $3 a bottle (my sister needs to remember that cost savings tip).

The door prizes were cute. Each bag had a mini bottle of wine, a wine glass, nail polish, and some sugar scrub (thanks again Brittany!).

The sugar scrub is super simple to make and works great on the hands (I had to test it before giving it out). You simply fill a cute jar with white sugar and add in some Dawn Hand renewal dish soap until you reach the desired consistency. When using you simply spread it on your hands, scrub for a minute or so and rinse it right off.

Since my sister and I both love crafts, we set up a craft station. I told you a little bit about it in one of the Make-It-Monday posts I participated in back in June.

I set out pictures of my sister and finance and ask everyone to doodle on the front and give her some wedding advice on the back. The hope is to add the guest's picture with the bride to be on the back side with their message.

It seemed like people had a lot of fun making these, and I loved seeing what people came up with. I'll post the finished book once I get it completed! It was simple enough that even a non-crafter could do it without feeling intimidated.

Here is a little banner I made for her special day. This was made using the boxy banner dies from papertrey ink, by far my most used set because of this and this and this.

If you like this banner, I'm selling it in my etsy shop! Get it before it's gone!

Normally, I would tell you all about the food but since this happened to be the day that I ended up in ER and I lost my gall bladder, I just can't talk about the food I ate that day. Have you all had that happen with food? You get sick from it and can't eat it again? Yep, sloppy joes and whiskey sour meatballs caused me to loss an organ, it wasn't their fault really, I'm sure it was just bad timing on their part. A few more months and I'm hoping the hard feeling pass because those whiskey sour meatballs are the bomb!

My sister loves red velvet cake, so I made these red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. The super cute paper cups were bought through Tomkat, check out their site, they have some pretty cute stuff! I even found these cups on clearance!