Part Two - Baby Shower - Beaded Bracelet theme

OK, so I've got the colors and a theme that involves letters and beads.  What's next?  I wanted to find the assorted pastel plates.  Since we were planning the shower in the Spring there were Easter colors available but the cost was just too much for that many place settings. And how many times would I need to use 36 pastel plates?  I could the paint the back of my glass plates. I already had enough of them.  I could match the colors exactly and I didn't have to buy cups, saucers and accessory pieces that came with a pre-made dinnerware set.

The paint technique had to be durable enough to hold up to handling, a food safe application, simple and relatively quick and hopefully removable.  The solution?  Liquid Starch.  Yep, the stuff in the bottle in the laundry aisle that was used to make shirts, curtains and tablecloths crisp when ironing.  I grew up with spray starch but my Grandmother used liquid starch to make her crocheted angel ornaments and the ruffles on doilies stiff.  I've used it to attach fabric onto my kitchen walls and have decorated the back of glass plates with scrapbook paper.  Why not try mixing it with paint?

It worked!  And it actually matched the vases perfectly.  The color is on the inside of the vase and the back of the plate so you look through the clear glass on both.  Yeah!  With Elena and Melissa's help we had 36 plates painted and ready to go.  I'll post a step by step tutorial for this technique and how to remove the paint soon.

I found the acrylic pacifiers at the craft store.  They were supposed to be party favors but worked great as napkin rings.  There are little acrylic pacifiers on the glasses too.  They were also in the baby shower section of the store.  Again, I think they were package ties for favors but worked perfect as drinking glass charms.  We used assorted satin ribbons to pull everything together.

We decided to decorate the cupcakes with fondant circles and use them on the table too.  After cutting the circles out of the fondant we pressed a rubber stamp in each one to decorate them. Since we had a fabulous selection of food and desserts (thanks to Melissa and Elena) we had cute boxes available for cupcakes.

Extra large sugar cookies decorated with a food safe marker repeated the BABY beads on the invitation and provided another take home favor for the guests. The cookies were propped on both sides of the table on a foam board stand covered with flannel receiving blankets.

 

The overall look was simple and classic but the details were special.  We all loved it. 

Next: The food (oh! the fabulous food) and a craft activity for the guests.

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