Sip and See for Avalon

Description

A Sip & See, an Aus­tralian tra­di­tion, is a type of baby shower where par­ents invite friends and fam­ily over to ‘see’ the new­born while ‘sip­ping’ on a drink, gen­er­ally Cham­pagne, tea, cof­fee, or punch. Leave it to the Aus­tralians to turn a baby shower into a rea­son to drink! A Sip & See is per­fect for cou­ples on their 2nd or 3rd child who either didn’t have a baby shower, or want a way to intro­duce all the fam­ily to the new baby at once. As the proud mommy of a brand new baby girl I wanted to do some­thing spe­cial to wel­come her into the world. Being that this is my 3rd child, I did not have a baby shower for her. Being that I am a small busi­ness owner, I do not get paid on mater­nity leave, so the hus­band gave me a teeny tiny bud­get to work with, so I became very DIY.

Design Inspiration

The event event was designed to match the baby nursery. My new baby girl will be sharing a room with my 3 year old boy so I wanted to have gender neutral nursery. I'm a big fan of the current trend of grey/black/white chevron prints with bold accent colors. The theme is prominent throughout my house, so that is direction we went with for the nursery. Grey & White chevron with her side of the room popping strawberry pink & sun yellow.

Decorating Style

As a wedding & event coordinator I have planned many vintage style weddings. Enough to know that we are not a vintage type of family. Modern bold prints, stripes and polka dots.

Project Details

Flower arrange­ments from WhiteSakuras.com Home­made cup­cakes with free print­a­bles from PotteryBarnKids.com Alpha­bet Bunting flags free down­load wed­ding tem­plate at Ruffledblog.com The cover of the invi­ta­tion, also worked as a birth announce­ment. Also framed and added to the baby nurs­ery. Cus­tom made by Heidi Jo of www.heidijoportraits.com Pink Lemon­ade Cook­ies Gift Bags from Etsy.Com Per­son­al­ized Rib­bon from PickYourPlum.com Choco­late “Meet-balls” made by Great Grandma’s Kitchen Paper Straws from Etsy.com Balloons from Party City (I ordered about 100- that was a crazy drive home, next time we order delivery). Pink & White tissue paper balls from Martha Stuart Crafts Game table was sub­tle with lit­tle games peo­ple could play at their leisure, with win­ners announced later. Flow­ers from WhiteSakuras.com, Lemon Maringue Cheese­cake from Great Grandma’s kitchen {secret fam­ily recipe} Light snacks were dis­played {Hint: hold­ing your event between meal times 1:30 — 4:40 means you do not nec­es­sary have to serve lunch or dinner, just make it clear in the invites}. We used good ‘ol Costco for a Cheese Tray & crack­ers, a Vegi Tray, tor­tilla rolled sand­wiches, and a few other good­ies. We also like the Mor­gan­Made Corn & Bean dip. Also, you can’t have a Sip & See with­out some­thing to “Sip”. We had some bub­bly, some kid­die punch and some mommy punch.

Favorite Items

The flower arrangements were the most beautiful part of the decor thanks to WhiteSakuras.com.

Advice

Because I plan events for a living I always put added pressure on myself to pull off these inventive creative events for myself. Meanwhile, I drive myself crazy trying to be perfect. I have learned over the years that no one, except myself, expects perfection. Trying to achieve that takes all the fun out of it. Pick out all the stuff you want to do and then narrow down a realistic list of things you will have time for. I created an A & B list of Must Do's and Might Do's. Then don't beat yourself up if you didn't finish everything you wanted. With a brand new baby, a 3 year old, and a teenager at home, I did as much as I could and most importantly, I had fun on the day of the party.