My husband pointed out that I haven’t updated my blog in quite a long, long time. (May 8th to be exact.) That’s because I started back to work on May 2nd and have actually been spending time as a productive member of society again. I’ve also been spending my non-working hours making things for an upcoming baby shower.
You really don’t have to search far to find bargains for a baby shower. For example, do you really need to buy pink plastic cutlery and little bottle shaped jars for candy favors? I bought 48 paper plates with a baby theme from the back of a party store. A pack of eight plates normally sells for $3.99. I bought all 48 for only $3.00. The store had sold out of the matching cups and napkins so they were on sale for only $.50 a package. I bought white cups, napkins, and plastic cutlery. Because you always wind up with leftover supplies after a party and this way I can reuse them for some other occasion.
Most of the decorations for the party are also gifts for the mom-to-be. For example, I looked on websites for common baby shower gifts. I found diaper cakes and diaper wreaths selling for over $100! I went out and bought diapers, ribbon, and a styrofoam wreath for only $20. I started constructing these items in the car on a long car ride back from North Carolina. (What else is a girl to do in a six hour car ride.)
That’s not all. I made a scrapbook for the mom-to-be after seeing ready made scrapbooks for sale at local card stores. I have to say this isn’t my most frugal tip because it probably saved me only a few dollars to build the scrapbook myself. But the finished product looks much better than the store-bought one, and the mother-to-be will be happy with the home-grown approach.
I found a very cool banner on a kids website. Fabric letters were weaved together with pretty ribbon to spell the babies name. Since we won’t know the babies name before the shower, I am simply spelling out “Baby Shower” in pretty pink & white fabric. The white fabric is actually left over from favors I made for my own wedding. The same pink fabric will be used as a table runner for the dining room table. The fabric was on sale for less than $5 and it can be reused at a later point in time.
I have to admit that my attempt to save money has cost a fair amount of time. But if you are willing to put in a few extra hours you can save quite a bit of money. Just making the decorations from scratch has easily saved me $300!