This nautical themed baby shower will keep the fun floating along!

How many baby showers have you been to where you were watching the clock counting the minutes until you could leave?  Using ideas from this nautical themed baby shower I gave my daughter will make your baby shower one that the guests won’t want to leave!  This shower was held at a reception hall but the same ideas and theme could be used anywhere.  What’s great about the nautical theme, other than it is very popular, is the ideas here could be used for either sex of baby.  This shower was for a boy but could easily be adapted for a girl with pink used in place of navy blue in all the decorating.

The invitations were an idea I found on Pinterest and had them personalized for me.  I ordered navy blue envelopes from Staples to mail them out.

I created the entrance with two nautical life rings with Welcome Aboard on them.  I found them on Amazon very cheap ($3.78 + $1.01 for shipping), they came from China and took a while to be delivered.

 

At the entrance were two long tables, on the one table we put the cake for everyone to see and then on the opposite side was the table with the nautical diaper cake, the scrapbook pages for guests to fill out and the lunch menu tents with each guest’s name and meal choice they had RSVP’d with.

The diaper cake was created with size 2 diapers rolled up and taped, nautical ribbon from Michael’s to hold each layer together and nautical painted wood cut outs from Amazon glued on the front of each layer.  It was three layers with blue crinkled paper on the layers and around the bottom to finish it off.

The scrapbook pages were for the guests to write their “Wish for Colton…” and sign their name.  I created many pages decorated with nautical themes with stickers and cutout anchors.  The nautical scrapbook paper was purchased at various craft stores (Michaels, Joann’s and Hobby Lobby).  A picture of each guest was taken with the guest of honor having the baby (my daughter).  There were navy and red Sharpie markers for the guests to write with.  After the shower I glued the picture of the guest with my daughter on the page they had written. Then I put them in the scrapbook for a keepsake.

To continue the nautical theme, I put fish net on all the tables with some of the small anchors I had painted.  The centerpieces on the guest tables were red Gerbera daisies which were used as prizes later.  I had chocolate candy bars made with the baby’s name on the front and the back had a thank you, these were ordered from Shindigz (they had the best price around). 

This is the wrapper for the candy bars.  The top is the front with the baby's name and the bottom is the back with a thank you.

They were placed at each placemat (navy blue paper placemats from Gordon Foods).  We also ordered foaming hand soaps in red and blue colors from Bath and Body Works and tied nautical ribbons around them.  These were also placed at each placemat for each guest as a thank you.  I found red square small dishes and I put individually wrapped white lifesavers in them in the center of the tables (3-4 bowls per table).

I found some large card board unpainted anchors at Hobby Lobby and some wood unpainted anchors at Michaels which I spray painted some navy blue and some white but they could easily be painted pink or any other color.  The large anchors were hung on the walls, the small ones were scattered on the tables on the fish net.

On one wall of the room I hung a nautical clothesline, using a cotton rope with nautical themed baby clothes in red, white and navy.  The baby clothes were for the baby. This was a great decoration as well as being reusable.

The cake was ordered from a local bakery with a picture I had found on Pinterest with a few changes that I made.  The cake was not only was beautiful but it was delicious too!

I did not have the usual boring games that most showers have since most people do not like them.  We did a diaper raffle, where if the guest brought a box of diapers they were entered in the raffle.  There were two prizes for these which were beach bags with “a day at the beach items”.  We put flip flops, a beach towel, suntan lotion, sun screen, a magazine, candy, chips, a reusable cup with a straw and a bottle of flavored water in each bag.

 To win the Gerbera daisy flower centerpieces I had a silk Gerbera daisy which I gave to a random person at each table to start with.  Then I read a funny little story about my daughter going into labor and her husband trying to get her to the hospital with lefts and rights in the story.  Each time a left was read the silk daisy was passed to the left and each time a right was read it was passed to the right.  The guests had fun laughing at the story and the person who ended up with the silk daisy won the centerpiece.

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