The wording for baby shower invitations was relatively uniform, as the invitations themselves were generally printed on plain white stock paper of high quality with some sort of calligraphic message announcing the birth of the family’s first child.  When the shower was first popular, the tradition was to celebrate only the first birth in this fashion, while any subsequent births were largely ignored outside the immediate family.

Since that time, the baby shower has taken on a bit of a life of its own, and has grown a great deal thanks in large part to the growth of the internet.  The World Wide Web has allowed even the smallest company to insert themselves into the fray as a player in the baby shower business.  Because of this, baby shower décor, invitations, games, favors and everything else one could think of have become so diverse, it’s almost impossible to find two sites that sell the exact same products.

Wording for baby shower invitations has grown from its basic beginnings, into a veritable cornucopia.  Wording for these invitations can be attributed to famous people whom you find a quote for that you feel applies to the event, or it can be dreamed up all by yourself.  Certainly the kinds of words you use will most likely depend on the sort of theme you’ve decided to go with for the baby shower.

If you go with say a super hero motif for the party, some allusion to your favorite hero on the invitation and well as the decorations would be the way to go.  If you decide you want a theme of zoo animals, something that would go hand in hand with that would be appropriate.

Whatever wording you decide to use, should establish both what the party is for, and what sort of party you are hoping to have.  If you want both men and women, or couples to attend the event, drawing attention to that in a clever way may set the table for a fun shower.

The words themselves can be anything you would like them to be, and the format in which they are written can also take many forms.  Perhaps most interestingly is that with the rise of the baby shower, we’re seeing more invitations written in other languages.  What was once a truly American tradition has seen growth not only in America, but it has stretched to peoples across the globe as well.  Everyone around the world wants to get in on the fun of the baby shower.

Written by A.A. Milne, the lovable tubby bear is a British creation from the 1920’s that was widely distributed to American audiences when Walt Disney bought the rights to his stories.  Ironic since it was a German immigrant by the name of Franz Schauer that first introduced the world to the tradition of the “baby shower”.

Winnie the Pooh baby shower invitations have become all the rage with the different lovable characters that symbolize the stories and moral lessons deeply embedded in their tales.  But while buying Winnie the Pooh baby shower invitations can become costly, mainly because the trademarks mean that retailers can charge a bit more, there’s no law that says you can’t make them yourself.

The accomplished craftsperson can use any kind image altering software to get their start.  First you need to decide what kind of paper you’re going to use.  Most arts and crafts stores will have a wide variety to choose from and a section that is devoted entirely to blank paper that can serve as fancy invitations.  Then put the invitation paper in your trusty color printer, find any Pooh images and styles you want.  Type whatever message you’d like to have on the invitations; with the added addition of a Winnie the Pooh saying included in some way a good idea, and print them out.  Baby shower invitations can usually fit two to an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper, so keep that in mind when you’re making your purchase.  Presumably you can also find some decent, and relatively cheap envelopes at the same crafts store with which to mail your invites out.

If you’re going to go the Pooh route for you baby shower theme, make sure you match up the invitations with look-alike decorations and center pieces, whether you make them yourself, or break down and buy them, they should mirror your invitations as closely as possible.  The favors you give out to guests can also easily fall under the Winnie theme if you put a little thought into it.  Small honey jars with purple ribbons tied around them will certainly be “on the nose”.  Little gifts such as beeswax, or honey scented candles can also be nice favors that also stay inside the theme of the party.

“A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.”  That Winnie the Pooh quote can go a long way in describing how and why we choose to hold baby showers.  Close friends or family get together to make sure the guests of honor know that they will have love and support from those closest to them.

Hosting a twin baby shower doesn’t really require any more work than when hosting the run of the mill baby shower.   The Twin baby shower ideas don’t really require any more work, simply the ability to adapt the shower to the twin theme as opposed to the old reliable.

The first step is always choosing the theme.  There are many ideas for the twin baby shower, and just as many matching twin baby shower invitations.   Twin baby shower invitations can draw attention to the twins by using special pictures, or it can draw almost none with a simple sentence.  How much emphasis you want to put on the event is completely up to you.

With every other baby shower out there, there are special favors that can be used to separate your shower from the rest of the herd.  The favors should be something that isn’t an oddity if there are two of them, but beyond that, there’s no limit.  One cute idea I’ve seen mentioned before would be two jawbreakers, lemon drops, or other circular candy wrapped into green cellophane and call it “two peas in a pod” There are many variations on this idea which will work just as well.

Suggested gifts for the shower should fit into the general theme of the twins celebration, and should of course come from where the parents to be have registered, but there are some gifts that could be considered unique for a twins shower.

Gifts that any baby can use include diapers, onesies, bibs, pacifiers, and toys, of course baby toys.  One gift that almost any parent of twins would like to have, which can a bit pricey simply because of the rarity of the need; the stroller with two seats.  There can also be swings that can seat two babies, and two high chairs or bouncy chairs will be a welcome addition to any home.  Double of any gift will be welcomed with open arms.

As far as who will be invited to this celebration; while traditionally showers have been women only, more men have been coming to baby showers over the last few years.  Having guests bring a “date” or just a friend in order to stay in the swing of the twins theme could be an inventive addition.

The final say on anything baby shower related will always be completely up to the host who’s throwing the party, but the guests who have been invited as well as the guests of honor must be able to enjoy themselves.  There shouldn’t be anyone who is looking to leave ten minutes after they arrive.  The baby shower is not an event that should ever be more work than fun.

Though baby showers are not fancy or dress-code parties, a whole lot of attention is usually paid to the invitation the hosts send out. It should be fun, colorful and it should reflect the theme of the party in question. For example, a baby shower for a boy can have the jungle theme, and a baby shower for a girl can be all about dolls and fairies. Floral themes go well for both genders, so as ducklings and frogs.

If you are already looking for the perfect set of invitations, you might have noticed that the offer is enormous and can be overwhelming. You can choose from simple yet fancy looking cards, homemade invitations, or bigger foldable cards, just to name a few. Most online invitation stores will have an extensive array of options for you to browse through. Still, settling for a particular design is just the beginning.

Once you have your invites, you might find it hard to decide on what to write in them, how to tell people you want them to attend your celebration. You’ll find several phrases, verses and invitation wordings online too, but coming up with your own is the best option. But finding the right thing to say and the best way to say it can be hard sometimes, specially if you want to find something that represents the personality of the parents-to-be. Plus, you might want to visually see how your choice of wording looks on the card you picked. That’s why sample baby shower invitations are so popular nowadays. Not only they allow people to see what the text they picked looks like on the invitation, but they also help a lot when they want to take a look at different options of fonts, sizes and colors.

If you are struggling to find the best wording for your sample baby shower invitations, don’t panic. Just start by making sure you cover the basic, most important points:

-          Name of the soon-to-be parents

-          Type of baby shower (Is it a surprise? Can people come with their partners?)

-          Date, place and venue

-          Name of the store where the host is registered for gifts, if any

-          Is it a dinner party? A brunch? What kind of refreshments will the guests be expecting?

-          Party theme, if any, and gender of the baby if known

-          If you ask people to RSVP, give clear instructions on how to.

Once you have these basic points of information down, you can’t go wrong with a baby nurse rhyme or poem to make it a bit more personal. Print as many samples as you need until you are happy with the results, and let the baby shower fun begin!

Handmade invitations might cost you less than the ones you can buy on a store, but they don’t have to necessarily look cheap because of that. For starters, you can download templates online that will help you in case you want a “high-end” invitation look as opposed to the “arts and crafts” style. Just highlight the text on the parts you want to change and modify it so that it matches your baby shower event details. You can also personalize the font that is used, the size and the color. If you decide to do this, you should probably print the templates onto high quality paper, making sure you don’t forget to select the highest quality printing settings for your particular printer. They are usually found under “fine photo” or “best quality”. Make sure you print them so as to be able to cut the paper and make 5 x 7” invitations out of each printed sheet of paper. Don’t worry, most templates include cutting guides that you can follow to cut them just the right size.

Once you have your cut 5 x 7” cards, you’ll need 8 ½ x 10” size colored or decorative cardstock, ribbon and permanent adhesive glue. If your cardstock is not that exact size, just cut it using a sliding paper cutter or a paper cutter guided by a metallic ruler. The best thing to do is to purchase one of those fancy, bright-colored 8 ½” cardstock, as you can just cut each card in half and they’ll be ready to use.

Use strips of adhesive glue on the outer edges of the backside of each invitation. Then mount the invitations on the cardstock very carefully, so that the paper is centered on all edges. Then cut a fairly long piece of ribbon, and fold it in half so that you know exactly where the middle is. Then apply some glue the ribbon in that spot, so that it stays in place when you tie it to the invitations.

Then just present the ribbon around 1 ½” from the bottom right hand corner, at an angle. Wrap it around and cross it on the back where it meets the other end. Tie a loose knot with the ribbon and find a nice spot for it. Then just apply some glue to the back of your knot to make sure it holds down. Once you have your knot you can tie the ribbon in a bow. And that’s it! I bet you never thought it would be this easy to make your own baby shower invitations!

As part of this trend, more and more people are holding their baby showers with a twist. What if the wedding was a long time ago? Or in case that the bride had 8 different best maids? You don’t want all of them trying to organize a baby shower while struggling to work with each others’ schedules. Chances are that the party will be held in time, but it might turn out more of a headache for everybody than the celebration of life and love it’s supposed to be in the first place.

The greatest twist we’ve seen on baby showers is to have the husband or partner organizing it. Of course, it totally depends on his personality, as baby showers involve taking on quite a lot of “feminine” tasks, which not every man is cut out for. Still, just having the father-to-be being an active part of the party planning might mean a whole lot for an expecting mother.

If you want to set up a baby shower for your lady, you might feel overwhelmed with all the different things you are supposed to put together. But if you look at it this way, it might turn out to be easier than you ever thought. You don’t need to do everything at once, actually, the best thing is for you to just do the main planning and whatever task you feel is not too “girly”. You can pick stuff up from different stores, help get the house ready by gathering whatever amount of chairs you might need, etc.

Basically, you can just put together “teams” of your wife’s best friends and have them take on different tasks. This doesn’t mean you won’t get to show your input or have an opinion on the different decisions. You can just take an active part in putting everything together, and maybe deciding on a theme too. Once that’s done, the girls can do what they do best. One of the most popular themes, which work both for girls and boys, is the ladybug theme. You’ll need to find specific, theme-related items, like ladybug baby shower invitations, different sizes of red, white and black balloons, cups with red and black polka dots, paper plates, etc. Your wife’s friends can help you a lot with all of this, especially when it comes to filling out and sending your ladybug baby shower invitations. Once everything’s put together, your lady will be immensely thankful to you for helping organize the party. Just make sure everybody has fun!

A jungle baby shower theme can be a great option for a boy or a girl, although it is generally used for boys as girls have several other themes to pick from that can be a lot more girly. All-baby jungle decorations can also be extremely cute, and games to go with this theme are also very easy to come up with. Still, one of the best things about it is that you can even have a theme within the theme. For example, it can be all about the African Jungle, about your favorite Jungle-related movie (Tarzan, Lion King, etc), about stuffed animals or you can even propose a Safari-related dress code…! Just pick your choice and start thinking about the possible decorations that will take it to the next level.

The jungle baby shower theme is also great because it has a clear color palette you can choose from when it’s time to send out your jungle baby shower invitations. Whether you decide to get them in a store, print them yourself from pre-made found online or to send out handmade invitations, you can use lots of yellow, brown, orange and green. Red, violet and light blue are also possible options, as they remind us of the colors of the sunset. They also add a nice contrast to the basic “Safari theme” colors, which are khaki of course and a yellowish, mustard green.

You can also come up with clever ways to ask people to come on the back of your jungle baby shower invitations. You can say something like “help us get our man cub ready for the great outdoors!” The options are only limited by how far you can take your imagination.

Baby shower games can make or break the party, so choose wisely. The jungle theme can be great for games, so here’s a couple you can use:

-          Name the baby: Write down a list of animals, with a number next to each one. Put it up against the wall and give pen and paper to each guest. Step in front of the list so that nobody can read it, and get your timer ready. Whoever can write down more baby animal names in one minute, wins. Some can actually be harder than you think! These are some of the animals you can use: Pigeon/squab, goose/gosling, kangaroo/joey, fox/kit, deer/fawn, whale/calf and fish/fry.

The jungle pregnancy game: Leave your sign up and get everyone to split in pairs. Two couples play together each time. One of the participants has to guess the gestation time for each of the animals from the previous game, while the other one is only allowed to point up and down as her partner takes a “wild” guess. The couple that gets 5 correct guesses first wins. Of course, the participant that knows the answer is not allowed to talk at all.

Scan your sonogram. Most people get their sonogram as a hard copy off the equipment at the doctor’s office so you need to get a digital copy of it to use for your shower invitation. Scan the sonogram at a high resolution off your home scanner or take it to a pharmacy or super center like Walgreens or Wal-Mart and scan it on their photo equipment. Save the image on a disc or memory stick to use at home.

Design your invitation. Get card stock for your inkjet printer and download a template for the cards from the manufacturer or open a card template from your own desktop publishing software. Conversely, if you want to simply make a flier or postcard just open the appropriate template or blank page in your word-processing software.

Place your sonogram image on the front of the card or at the top of a flyer invitation. Make sure you size the image so that it’s big enough to be seen clearly. It should be the focal point of the card.

Come up with your front-page slogan or sentiment. You can type in something like “It’s a boy!” or “Bun in the Oven,” or “Help celebrate little Nathan” if the Mom and Dad know the sex of the child. Then type in your text on the front page.

Adjust the font. Use a fun font for the front cover or “headline” of your invitation. If your software doesn’t offer a lot of font options, download some online. Follow the links in Resources for some cool fonts you may like to use.

Add the rest of the information. On the inside of the card, or under the sonogram for a flier-type invitation, include the name of the guest of honor, date, location and any other pertinent information for the big day. You may want to include information on the theme for the shower and where the parents-to-be are registered.

Print out your cards. Use the Best setting for your printer.

Tips:

• Add a little circle around the baby in the sonogram so that recipients can clearly see the little bundle of joy. You can do this with photo software or by hand once cards are finished. For an extra bit of fun, print a smaller version of the sonogram on the card envelope near where the return address label will go or on the back flap. This will give the recipient a little hint as to what lies inside.
• Be sure to get permission from the Mom before publishing her sonogram. Some people are private and may not want to share this special image.

Actually, guests won’t be expecting to be treated with fancy food or drinks when they attend your baby shower: it’s all about celebrating birth, making sure the parents get everything they need and having some fun at the same time!

With this in mind you’ll probably want to plan ahead so as to put the money in the right place… and the invitations, although very important, aren’t really an actual part of the party itself. Still, they can sometimes take up quite a lot of a baby shower’s budget. That’s why one of the best ways to save money is to come up with them yourself by making homemade baby shower invitations. Besides, they can be much more creative and fun than the ones printed from a template design, as you can personalize each invitation easily, making each guest feel special.

One of the best parts of deciding to make your own homemade baby shower invitations is that you won’t have to look all over for pre-made invitations that match your party theme. You can just whatever images you choose and even use different ones for each group of guests.

So… where to start? First, you’ll want to find the right clipart or the images for your invitations. If you are still not too sure about what technique to use, just go to an arts and crafts store and find out about Spanish style invitations, cardboard cutouts and customized pattern papers. All of these are all really fun to learn, and will put that extra special personal touch to the whole party. You might also want to get some envelopes and personalize them too. Some stores have a special kind of rubber stamps that you can use for the envelopes and the inside of the invitations too. They are just like the ones kids always play with, with the difference that you can mark them with different colors of ink and even include glitter on top with some glue for an extra special effect.

When putting the invitations together, you can use several embellishments that match your theme. A really nice vellum style (or see-trough) paper can make all the difference if placed on top of your special pattern paper for an easily achievable “high end” feel.

Finally, your invitations can have any format you choose: they can be cards, scrolls or pamphlets. You can include a couple of lines about the expecting couple, or even a poem or verse about babies and motherhood. After all, you can’t go wrong with these special, hart felt invitations, as they’ll be unique and they’ll honor the hosts in a way no pre-made store invitation ever will.

Baby showers are all about celebrating birth. Some people like to know the sex of their baby beforehand, but others would rather be surprised once the little bundle of joy comes to the world. When the decision is to wait until Mother Nature unveils the mystery, some things have to be adjusted a bit. Parents might have a hard time picking a theme for the baby shower invitations, or even what color to use for the party decorations. We all know pink stands for girls and blue screams “it’s a boy!”… But what color should we use when we decide to let the baby show us in nine months from now? White and Yellow seem to be the colors of choice for these particular situations, as they are both neutral enough but can still relate to the whole warm and fuzzy “baby” theme.

Once you start planning for the party, you’ll discover that hosting a baby shower can be lots of fun… and the best part is that there are practically no rules to follow! You can create your own games and activities, choose a specific theme for the food and decorations, or even have your guests participate by leaving little messages for the yet unborn host.

Still, first thing’s first: and it all starts when you send out your invitations. Duck baby shower invitations are great options when you decide not to know too much about your baby beforehand. They are becoming increasingly popular, as they have that nice fuzzy feeling to them, taking us back to those little rubber ducklings babies like to play with so much when they are being bathed. The best thing is that they can also set the whole theme for the party: you’ll find so many great rubber ducky products that you’ll just want to get them all! Just let your creativity run wild and you’ll be able to host a colorful, crazy baby shower that’ll splash fun all over the house.

Just make sure you send out your duck baby shower invitations at least 2 weeks before the party. That way, guests will have plenty of time to RSVP, save the date and find a nice gift to bring along. Also, don’t forget to include your name and directions to the place where the shower will be held. It’s always a good idea to register for gifts at a local baby store, as some work just like a wedding gift registry, making sure you don’t get duplicate gifts. Whatever you do, always remember that a baby shower is a celebration of life… so don’t forget to have fun!