It wasn't just a very crafty bridal shower, it was also a bridal shower inspired by pinterest - at least where the food was concerned.
I had a team of three girls and two boys (who, of course, disappeared sharpish when it started) and we all had a hand in the buffet. Here are the pinterest inspired yummies:
Butterbeer Cupcakes
Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies
S'Mores Pops
Veggie Appitizers
Watermelon Pops
Frozen Grape Pops
Oh... There were also some Strawberry Jello Shots but we had to keep those hidden away until the mother-of-the-bride and the mother-of-the-groom left. (My mom, who was co-hosting, didn't give a fig. Lol.)
Neither the bride nor myself really wanted to subject everyone to any horrible bridal shower games. So we didn't have any. I bought a pack of tiny plastic toys (some kind of underwater thing with cute dolphins, etc.) and randomly dropped them in the favour bags. People who found one got a prize.
Though we had a few store bought prizes, the best of all were two coin purses made by one of my helpers. She has a shop here on etsy. Here she is, showing off one of her awesome creations:
The closest we came to a game (except for a round of mad libs - which did get pretty mad) was a Photographic Scavenger Hunt. Inside each of the favour bags was a disposable camera and one of these:
Each item on the list involved the bride with someone or doing something. What better way to ensure that there where lots of great pictures taken to immortalize the day?
It was great fun watching each of the girls trying to beat each other to the end of list. We designed the tasks so that they spanned both the bridal shower and the bachelorette party and had a prize for the first person to tick them off. I haven't had any of the film developed yet (I'm pretty sure that some people never gave me back the cameras too) but they should be good.
The favour bags also had a pen (for the scavenger hunt), a heart shaped sucker, a Ring Pop, some Hugs & Kisses, an empty glass bottle and a paper bag scrap book.
The glass bottles were for storing the scented bath salts that we made. A table was set out with a large bowl of rock salt, a variety of scents & colours as well as plastic bowls and spoons for mixing. This was a cheap and easy craft to set up and everyone felt comfortable doing it because it wasn't too crafty.
It was interesting to see how each person's personality came across in the combination of colours and scents. Also, it had a nice, personal touch. (Rather than those horrible little silver picture frames that all the books suggest.)
The paper bag scrapbooks were inspired by one that my aunt made for my mom. I saw it and thought that it would be amazing for people to be able to take a half-finished one and add their own little personal touches to it then give it to the bride as a little momento. So that's what we did.
The girls really got into this but, be warned: it takes a lot of prep work to put together that many paper bag scrapbooks, even though they were basically blank. Each book had about eight pages in total (four bags) and one "sleeve" was left open with an advice card tucked inside. If you're going to do this, make sure you get it started early because it does eat time. We had people at both the bath salt station and the scrap book station pretty much constantly throughout the party.
I'm glad we went for a crafty shower because that's exactly the type of person the bride is. And it was a good idea to have two different crafts going at the same time because the scrap books were a bit more hardcore - some of the less crafty girls felt a bit intimidated by that but really liked the bath salts. All things considered, I think it went very well because every one got to get involved without being forced to take part in any stupid (and dull) games.
