Do-it-Yourself Baby Shower Favor Ideas

Planning a baby shower is lots of fun, but can become very expensive very quickly as the cost of decorations, food, and favors adds up. You can ease the financial burden a bit by making your own favors. Especially if you are the creative type, making your own favors can actually be fun. Here are a few ideas for easy do-it-yourself baby shower favors:

Chocolate Lollipops

Supplies:

Meltable Chocolate

Baby-themed chocolate lollipop mold

Lollipop sticks

Plastic or cellophane lollipop wrappers

Ribbon

Directions:

You can get the chocolate and the ribbon in colors that match your theme. You can also choose to use different colors within the same lollipop. To make the lollipops, you will first need to melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave. Follow the directions on the bag of chocolate for these two methods. If you don't have either a double boiler or a microwave, you can heat a pot of water on the stove, and then place a glass bowl over the pot. Put the chocolate inside the bowl and the steam from the pot will heat the bottom of the bowl and melt the chocolate. Next, place lollipop sticks inside the plastic molds. Finally, pour the melted chocolate into the molds, making sure to tap the sides of the molds to allow any air bubbles to escape. If you are using more than one color in your molds, first add the secondary color or colors, and then pour the main color over them. Let the mold sit until the chocolate hardens, again following the directions on the bag of chocolates for how long to wait. Once they are ready, slowly and carefully take the chocolate lollipops out of the mold and fit a plastic or cellophane wrapper over each of them. Bring the bottom of the wrapper together around the lollipop stick, and tie a piece of ribbon in a bow to keep it in place.

Organza Favor Bags

Supplies:

Organza drawstring bags or mesh circles

Bag Filler (chocolates, Jordan almonds, candy, nuts)

Ribbon

Directions:

If using mesh circles, lay them out and fill just the middle with a bunch of your filler materials. Bring together all four sides of the bag and tie a piece of ribbon in a bow around the middle to hold it together. If using organza bags, simply fill them with your filler material and pull the drawstrings to close the bag. You may want to attach a tag with the baby's name (if the parents have it picked out), and the due date. You can get these from online personalization websites.

Baby Shower Cookies

Supplies:

Boxed cookie mix

Baby-themed cookie cutters

Icing

Piping bag and tips

Plastic wrappers

Directions:

Follow the cookie mix directions for making the cookie dough. Using the baby shower-themed cookie cutter, cut out enough cookies for each guest. Bake the cookies according to the directions on the box. Now comes the fun part: decorating your cookies! After your cookies have cooled down, first apply a layer of icing to them. Then you can pipe on detailed decorations using various decorating tips. Some ideas for decorations are: draw in details for the type of cookie shape you did, write the baby's name on the cookie, write "(Mother-to-be's name)'s Shower" and the date of the shower, or write "Thank You" on the cookies. After the icing has dried, carefully place each cookie inside a plastic wrapper.

Favor Cake

Supplies:

Favors

Tiered cake platter or

3 cylinders or domes of flower foam, each piece an inch bigger in diameter than the others

Various extra decorations (optional)

Directions:

You can pair this idea with any of the above favors. The idea is to have the favors arranged in a tiered-cake shape which can be used as a centerpiece. To build the favor cake, arrange the favors on the cake platter. You can make one big favor cake or several small ones to put on each table. For chocolate lollipop favors, use flower foam (the kind of foam used in flower arrangements). Layer the pieces of foam with the biggest piece on the bottom and the smallest on top. Next, push the chocolate lollipop sticks into the foam at a slight angle to create a favor cake that pops. Finally, for either type of favor cake, you can add extra decorations such as ribbon.

References

Decorating 101: Cookies - Intro & Before Baking