It’s not every day that you get to plan the world’s most amazing baby shower. Lucky for me! When my best friend from college told me she was pregnant, I think we laughed, we cried and then we started a pinterest board. (yes in that order)

What would be the theme for the world’s most amazing baby shower? To answer that you would have to know my bestie. A gorgeous girl with a love for all things perfectly designed. A girl with a love for nature, all things Disney and whimsy. Pop culture, nerd culture and foundation of irish and italian traditions.

The theme would of course be a whimsical woodland baby shower! Not too cutsie, not too vintage. A new spin on a traditional theme. It all started with this baby shower invitation design. Did I mention my super talented bestie also designs fabulous invitations for as her side business? Yea… she’s got skills.

We gathered our supplies! She did a great job of collecting the coolest stuff from birch straws to adorable woodland creature paper masks.

I was mostly in charge of the elaborate dessert table but we collaborated for months over a lot details like favors, backdrops and centerpieces. Some decorations happened spontaneously and some where hand made by her mom and our mutual friends. The whole shower we literally a collaboration of so many people’s hard work and creativity.

Woodland Baby Shower

I got a lot my supplies and crafting material from a great wholesale resource called save-on-crafts.com They have awesome materials for great prices and I  have used them dozens of times! Some things I got from the website: Moss runners, dried flowers, moss wreathe, dried raw cotton, mossy branches and sola flowers.

For the Woodland Cake Table, I wanted the main cake to be directly inspired by the invitations with two smaller accent cakes. It was clear from the beginning to me that I would have a larger center “focal point” cake and then two smaller ruffly/girlie cakes with lots of desserts and goodies all around.

This lovely rustic wooden farm table was hand made and rented from Something Borrowed here in Portland as well as the container for the napkins and the wooden slices. They always have fab stuff!

The gorgeous backdrop was created by the mother-to-be’s friend and her mother! Teamwork baby!

The cake to the left was a champagne cake with strawberry filling and strawberry buttercream. The cake was rough iced and topped with a little deer figurine I purchased off of ebay. The cake to the right was chocolate with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. I hardly ever do buttercream cakes so this was a challenge. I used a small ruffle tip to created all the little ruffles and didn’t do that great of a job but thankfully everything is “rustic” so I think I got away with it ok. The ceramic foxes on top where purchased from a local thrift store.

The center cake is actually a faux cake made. I didn’t want to have too much cake leftover but I still wanted the look of having three cakes. The bottom tier is covered in delicate yellow ruffles. I learned this particular technique from Maggie Austin’s ruffled cake crafty tutorial. The center tier was covered in white fondant and then I cut out a large oval. I inlaid some grey fondant and cut out the silhouette of the deer and painted on the trees. I wanted it to match the invitations. I used more fondant, gumpaste flowers and white food coloring to create the branches. The top tier is white with yellow circle cutouts placed on top to create the “quilted” look. The crown is made from gumpaste and painted with gold food coloring. The rustic cake stand was purchased from save-on-crafts.com.

To accompany the cakes, we had lots of nummy desserts including salted caramel pecan mini tarts and woodland animal sugar cookies. The cookie cutters where purchased from IKEA.

The tables for guests where decorated with paper masks, more flowers and photos of the mother-to-be when she was younger. So adorable. The party was held at the parents home which was the perfect place for a woodland themed baby shower. The landscaping was perfect and there where many nooks and crannies for guests to sit out of the sun, drink some refreshments and just enjoy the day.

And then there was the food.. OH THE FOOD. Just try to imagine going to the best italian restaurant you have ever been to and then imagine that food being 10 times as good! Seriously, there is nothing better than home-cooked italian food by your aunties, grandma, cousins etc. I literally ate until I could not move anymore. Not even sorry about that one.

No baby shower is complete without a lot present opening! We decided to ask guests to give fun children’s books instead of cards so that baby Fiona is well on her way to a fabulous library of classics. Guests wrote special notes inside the books to be treasured forever. So much better than a card that eventually ends up in the trash.

The present opening was set up around this gorgeous high back chair also rented from Something Borrowed. We hung photos of mommy and daddy between two branches as the backdrop. The chair was the perfect place to open presents and allowed everyone plenty of room to watch and ooh and ahh at all the cuteness. As you can see I was extremely overcome by the adorableness of it all.

I am pretty sure this baby shower will go down in history as the coolest ever, at least until I get to throw my own (someday). If you have any questions or comments about anything in the shower, just leave a comment and I’ll answer you