bridal shower | Stick Girl JAM

A few weekends ago I had the great privilege of helping put together a bridal shower for a dear friend I’ve known since elementary school. I had just finished BlogShop when her sister and I were deciding the details and I was a little mood board obsessed (still am). I found these invitations (via Minted) a long time ago that I was dying to use, and since the bride lives in Omaha, I thought the idea of throwing a linen shower to keep all the gifts light for transport back on the plane was a brilliant idea. Turns out, though, that the idea of a “linen shower” had some guests very confused and wondering if they were supposed to bring a towel or their own towel or what linens were. Ha! At least there was a little suspense surrounding the shindig — makes it all more interesting!

I found a lot of great decor on the Ikea website and surprisingly, didn’t really need much else. We were able to reuse green plates from our wedding,the bride’s mom had some darling hot pink champagne flutes from another party, and I scored some awesome green tablecloths on clearance at Target. Plus, I found a bunch of ways to use washi tape (via cutetape.com) to keep with the modern green theme from wrapping the utensils, decorating the plain white cups, and covering the clothespins.

I’m not usually one for shower games, but the bride’s sister came up with a clever way for everyone to play without any humiliating moments — guess the celebrity bride. Everyone received a printout of photos of celebrity brides and grooms with the faces covered up. One point for the bride and another if you could name the groom. It was really fun.

The favors were little dishtowels with a little notecard that said “All you need is love. And dishtowels” secured with one of the handy clothespins in keeping with the theme on the invitation. And we even used dishtowels, potholders and oven mitts to create cute little backdrops on the food table and mantle. For brunch we had a yogurt bar with add your own fruits, nuts and granola toppings, mini quiches, pastries and sausage balls, and for dessert a cookie platter made by my mom and cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Yum!

Dr. Merrett is officially getting her doctorate this weekend and so I thought it would be timely to share some of the special details from her darling “love birds” bridal shower that the Merrett women hosted in her honor. I had such a blast making the decor and will soon be featuring some of it for sale in my Etsy shop so stay tuned or feel free to shoot me a message with any requests for orders.

I think maybe my favorite part of the shower was Pin the Bow Tie on the Groom. Usually I hate shower games but this was so much fun! (tip: I didn’t know this but a lot of copy places will make pretty cheap engineer prints in black and white, so something to think about if your large photo doesn’t need to be too high in quality or resolution.)

The Bride-to-Be pinning the bow tie on her dapper groom!

Even Baxter got in on the bow tie action! I definitely need to find him a darling little bow tie to wear on his collar. Too cute.

Decor included:

Yarn wrapped monogram “T” from a craft wood letter found at Michael’s, along with fabric flowers that were leftover scraps from my DIY Wave Wall Art project.

“Love” sign made of corks cut in thirds, mounted on cardboard.

The ethereal Initial mug from anthropologie was a perfect compliment in red floral on the dessert table.
T zinc letter from anthropologie on the gifts table, to be used as home decor in the newlyweds’ new nest! I love these because they are so industrial chic and go with everything! I think buying letters to spell out something would be stunning at any party.
Jute wrapped coffee cans (up-cycled) from Trader Joe’s, painted turquoise, along with fabric-covered tea tins.
Hemp balls and bowls to resemble nests
Mason jars
Red ranunculus and gerber daisies from Trader Joe’s (I could not get over how gorgeous the ranunculus were! What a find!)

Cake topper made with bamboo skewers, burlap, cotton tape and rubber stamps.

A pair of hot air balloons found at Goodwill (Deputy Tejeda proposed to Dr. Merrett in a hot air balloon – swoon!).
Scrumptuous fresh strawberry-filled cake from Lindmair Bakery in Riverside.

My mama made delicious goodies including cookies, macaroons, butterscotch bird nests (that’s my mother, so appropriate!), turquoise cake balls, almond butterballs, brownies, bon bons (and I grabbed some meringues from Trader Joe’s because they’re just so pretty) for guests to take home in little favor boxes stamped with a thank you and a darling little bird.

Ever my son, Baxter guarded the desserts for most of the day.

The table settings were repurposed from our wedding two years ago – we got the turquoise and robin’s egg blue plates at Dollar Tree, the silverware at Smart & Final, and the polka dot napkins at Ikea.

Table with a view featuring StickGirlJAM’s handmade decor

Love Birds Bridal Shower with turquoise, red, and hemp, burlap and jute decor

We are so excited for the wedding which is just a few weeks away, and I’m busy at work on some of the decor which I’ll be sure to share as well. Cheers to love!