Without a simple, streamlined plan, organizing a baby shower for a friend or family member can seem like a lot of work—and just setting a date and sending out the invitation can be daunting. But with Mixbook, you can create your invitation, plus put together a meaningful gift for the mom-to-be and party favors for guests all in one place—quickly, easily, and affordably. When you think about the purpose of a baby shower—beyond bestowing lots of gifts on the mother-to-be—it’s really about a rite of passage. Shepherding someone you care about through the transition into parenthood. It’s a rare opportunity to bring together and share all the collective wisdom of friends with different perspectives on what it takes to embark upon the loving care and feeding of a child.
Painting baby tees and playing, ahem, diaper games can be fun—or at least highly entertaining—but with a little planning you can tap into some really heartwarming stories that will give any new mom a much-needed feeling of community—or at least comic relief—during some of the more challenging times ahead.
Before sending out your invitations, think about a meaningful project you can create in tandem with the celebration you’re hosting. It’s easiest for everyone—including you—if all the details of your project are included on the invitation itself.
I love the idea of putting together a kid-friendly recipe book for the mom-to-be. It may seem like feeding her baby anything but milk and rice cereal is a long way off, but it goes by FAST and the stories shared by her friends and family members surrounding the act of nourishing their families tends to be rife with humor, history, and rich memories. It’s also a nice way to include parents and non-parents alike in the process of passing down wisdom to the mother-to-be. After all, everyone has memories and associations surrounding food.
On your invitation, indicate that you’d like each guest to send you a recipe for a kid-friendly food along with a relevant photograph and a story about why you love the recipe or how it’s meaningful to you in 200 words or less. Explain briefly that you’ll be making a surprise gift with everyone’s contributions. Here’s the text I used on my baby shower invitation:
"We’re making a Kid-Friendly Recipe Book for sharing! Please send Marielle a recipe for your go-to kid-friendly food, a photograph of you or your kids enjoying it, and a story (200 words or less, please!) about why it’s great by July 20th!"
Guests will likely assume that you’re making the recipe book as a special gift solely for the mom-to-be. And they’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover that the recipes they contributed were for a mini photo book that each guest can take home with them as a party favor. Choose the mini landscape size for party favors—and create one larger format with a hard cover as a special gift for the guest of honor.
You can choose any Mixbook theme for your recipe photo book, but the Family Recipes theme is a great place to start. Simply upload photos, recipes and stories into your photo book as they come in. Before you know it, you’ll have a big beautiful book that the soon-to-be-mom will treasure for years to come.
And instead of sending guests home with a useless tchotchkes or plastic baby bottles filled with candy, you’ll be handing out cute little mini books filled with meaning and memories. Friends and family members will enjoy flipping through the book and cooking from it with their children, and it may even conjure up happy memories or inspire the creation of new traditions, which—here at Mixbook—we find far more important than your standard baby shower party favor.
Tie it all together with a perfect theme. Here are some baby shower decorating ideas.
