5 things to "thrash out" in order to have a pocket-friendly baby shower

Ushering in a baby into this world is one of the most precious gifts given to a woman. It is no wonder that this stage is celebrated in the gainful wait of this "bundle of joy". Baby showers are fun and should be made special for every mother-to-be. However; like with many celebrations, cost can be an issue. Well here are some tips to planning a budget friendly baby shower...

Fist of all, let's get this clear... baby showers are planned incognito. so the mother-to-be is totally in the blanks about this party. This can be planned by either her friends or even her colleagues at work.
Right! Now that THAT's out of the way... let get back to how we can organise a pocket friendly baby shower. If you can get these 5 items checked off your list... your pretty much done!

Location. The most cost effective location for any baby shower would be to do it indoors. So get a volunteer from among you to use their house as the venue for the baby shower. Another bright idea would be to use your office as the venue (if it is a colleague organising), but only if this is allowed and it doesn't interfere with your office activities. Either way, you totally get to eliminate the stress of getting rentals like tables. chairs... heck a canopy!

Invites & Invitations. Thankfully, we got the internet and our beloved mobile phones. So long to sending invitation cards! Once you've made your invitation list, just send a text to everyone with the baby shower details. You can also send emails to everyone. Or here's a better idea... Since sending full details of the baby shower can run into 2 SMS's... why not text everybody to email you their email addresses (or at least those you do not have their email ads) and then email the lot the baby shower details. You can even throw in a baby shower picture in there too to set the mood. Better still, create a baby shower group on Whatsapp and communicate with everyone anytime... any day about the party!

Decorations.  To do this, you would have decided on a theme. It could a teddy bear theme, a prince or princess theme, rain drop theme or even a diaper theme! Whatever it is, it should be the driving force behind the type of decorations you get. Try and be creative here... Google is your friend! You can get tons of DIY ideas from the net. A lot of your decoration can be hand made, e.g. you can make baby napkins from handkerchiefs or dish/face towels, fold them into the shape of baby diapers and use baby pins for the finishing touches. These can be placed anywhere around the venue or attached to ribbons and hung anywhere. There is a lot that can be made with colourful cardboard paper, scissors, glitter, glue, sellotape, a couple of markers and some ribbon! You can make a banner, crowns, baby shoes and more! And of course... no party is complete without balloons!

Food & Drink. Come up with a list of finger foods such as small chops, sandwiches, popcorn, chips, biscuits, ice cream, cup cakes, etc. You may throw in some moi-moi or grilled chicken. No need for the party rice or eba and soup tinz with orishi orishi. Having healthy snacks are also good, so pile on the fruits- make a fruit salad maybe. You can assign foods to different members on your attendance list so you don't end up having 5 cakes, 1 tray of chicken and moi-moi, 1 liter ice cream and NO drinks! Or you can make your food list and come up with your budget and bill everybody for it. In fact, this can apply for the budget of the entire baby shower! "Spread the love".

Games/Entertainment. This ain't a traditional wedding so no need to hire dancers and stuff... In fact, scrap entertainment and stick to a trusty sound system and great music. Focus more on games. To be real conservative on the spending, stick to games you need just pen and paper. You can download baby shower printable games from the internet. You could also make some up like a pin the pacifier on the baby's mouth (which is really just a rendition of the "pin the donkey's tail game we did as kids"). All you need is a cardboard paper (this you can get from any old carton box in the store), a printout of the baby and the pacifiers on separate papers (you can download these) a pair of scissors, a paper pin for the pacifier and some glue. Just stick the baby printout on the cardboard and cut around it. Now that it looks like a sturdy board game, you can sellotape that to a wall or door. Cut out the pacifiers and pass the paper pin though one. this will be used to pin the pacifier on the baby.
... and your done!!