The theme was candy and the colors were blue and black. We decided to use the invitation as the inspiration for the decor...stripes and polka dots. For the centerpieces, I spray painted 10 medium and 2 large terra cotta pots white. Then I handpainted stripes along the rim and polka dots on the sides. I used 1/8" ribbon to cover the ends of the vertical stripes and give it a crisp finish around the rim. To simplify things a bit, we left five of the pots white with a black ribbon tied around them. Then we put floral foam inside and covered it with a black circle of construction paper with black tissue paper wads glued on it (which was inspired by my daughter's art project she had done for church that week). For the two large pots, we added balloons and a few sprays to fill them in and give them some height. We made and arranged suckers in the pots to serve as the favors with little tags that said "thank you" on each one. Over the course of two days, I made 63 chocolate suckers and Sandi made 60+ chocolate covered oreo suckers. Sandi wrapped and tied the tags on each one. Oh...did I mention that there were 100 people invited to this shower?
Here are the final products (you can also see the circles we cut from paper to scatter on the tables for decor):
For the sixteen prizes, we decided to make one pound boxes of sweets. Inside, each one had ten pieces of fudge, two chocolate dipped oreos, and a 2.25 oz bag of candied walnuts. While Sandi was making the fudge, I decorated the boxes by gluing on circles I cut from blue and black paper. Here's what they looked like (they are at the right end of the table):
Here you can see the guest book pages I made so that everyone could sign a polka dot (bottom left corner). We also used those to choose the door prize winners.
And finally....the cake. It was frosted with buttercream and decorated with fondant. While I assembled and frosted the cake, Sandi cut out and rolled most of the fondant.
Congratulations to the parents-to-be!
