mama & mou: {Guest Mama} Woodland Baby Shower

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So by now you all know that one of my absolute favorite things is throwing parties! I don't care if it's a First Birthday, A BBQ Baby Shower or just a dinner party for a couple of friends...I LOVE to entertain! Today I'm really excited that Jessica is here to share an ADORABLE Woodland Themed Baby Shower - I'm seriously obsessed with some of these little details {particularly the little red birdie in the thermal hat}.

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Hi! I'm Jessica blogging over at The Journey of Autumn where I talk about our adventures raising a toddler, my love for throwing a good party and everything in between. Today I'll be sharing the woodland themed baby shower I threw recently.

In November I threw my best friend, Stacy's, baby shower for her soon to be baby Chase. She let me have full reign over the theme and everything else. Naturally, I went wild!

When I started thinking about a theme, I wanted something that was masculine without having blue everything. I'm so in love with all the woodland creatures that have been filling the stores and thought it'd make the cutest boy baby shower theme. I started with this simple and cute invite from Etsy.

Via

My inspiration was rich colors, forest things and of course lots of woodland creatures.

{food/drinks}

I wanted some simple but good food that would be easy to re-fill and wouldn't get cold.We had some sandwiches, Chick-fil-A nuggets, crackers and dips, pasta salad and other small appetizers.

Some mason jars, washi tape, water and fresh cranberries created the perfect accent to the food counter.

And a 'moss' ball to go with the theme. A green onion cheese ball covered in parsley. It was delish!

For drinks, I made this drink we always have at family parties. It doesn't have an actual name, but it's just lime sorbet with Sprite poured over it. It's so simple and absolutely delish! It foams up when the Sprite is added which went perfectly with the woodland theme.

We also had a hot cocoa bar! This was one of my favorite parts of the party. I used a CrockPot recipe for the actual hot cocoa. (A note to this recipe, it takes far longer, about double the time, for the chocolate to melt than the recipe actually calls for. I also added more milk because it was too rich.)

I used these super cute tin buckets with chalkboard labels and some glass bowls with chalkboard labels I added. I used them to set out the crushed peppermint, candy canes, marshmallows and straws. There was also whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles, oh my. The cups were just simple ones from Party City so I fancied them up with a fox stamp. It added just a little something more. The birch straws went perfectly with the decor too!

{desserts}
There were two types of cupcakes...lemon with blueberries and red velvet, both with cream cheese frosting. The red velvet cupcakes were made to look like mushrooms by adding white chocolate chips upside down. The other ones were an earthy green with some pine cone toothpicks. We also had chocolate chip cookies and chocolate covered pretzels. Simple but oh so yummy!

{decor}

I really lucked out in the decor department because all the woodland decor was already out! Most of the woodland creatures were from Target. I also used some burlap, mason jars, kraft paper and bunting leftover from my daughters birthday party.

I made some bunting of the babies name and another banner with some prints I did. I found a plaid pattern, the deer head and made this 'Oh, Boy' banner. I love how it turned out!

One of my favorite pieces are the baby's initials 'C.P.J.' covered in moss. I bought the moss and cardboard letters at Hobby Lobby and simply glued the moss onto the letters. The best part, these can be used in the nursery too!

{favors}
As a 'thank you' gift to all the guests, they received a mason jar filled with all the fixings to make s'mores.

I originally got the idea of s'mores in a jar from Jess at Little Baby Garvin. I then added a tag stamped with 'thank you' and tied it on with twine. Another IG friend gave me the idea of adding heating instructions. I printed them on a plaid pattern sheet with some simple heating instructions to make them in the oven if you don't have a fire. Although, a fire is still the ~~only~~ best way to make s'mores!