Oh Baby_A Vintage Circus Baby Shower_My Creative Happy

Oh my goodness, you know how much I love decorating for kids, right?

So you can imagine my excitement when I was given the chance to throw my little sister her very first baby shower!

Excitement may be the wrong word.

It may be a little too tame.

Because I was entering dangerous territory here, people. This little endeavor was going to allow me to explore three of my favorite things:

Squeal!!! I was beyond giddy.

Now, as usual, in this project-happy mind of mine, ideas did not just materialize out of thin air. I did a lot of creative soul searching on Pinterest beforehand (and have a lot of very creative bloggers and DIYers out there to thank for their inspirations).

I did, however, know that I wanted to use the color orange.

My (very creative) sister was using that accent color in her baby nursery, and I wanted to incorporate it in her shower.

The only problem? Orange is not your typical baby shower color. I knew I was going to have to be very creative and resourceful when planning this.

At some point in the party-planning-brainstorming phase, I decided that a Vintage Circus theme would go super-cute with the color orange. I would just substitute anything normally red with the color orange, and switch the primary colors to more baby-friendly colors such as coral, pink, mint, and green. These muted tones just reminded me of all the vintage filters you see on photographs (which is where the whole Vintage Circus theme comes into play).

An idea was born.

And with that idea, came projects. Lots and lots of projects.

Vintage Circus Cupcake Stands

I came across two pretty cool ideas when browsing Pinterest that I’d like to share with you, as both were inspiration for my Vintage Circus Cupcake Stands. The first idea is this Wild Cat Cake Stand by A Beautiful Mess. I absolutely loved it! As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to make something similar for my sister’s shower.

Then I came across these DIY Party Animals by Pretty Providence. Those animals, in their painted outfits, were so stinkin’ cute!

I decided to combine those two ideas and make my own Vintage Circus Cupcake Stands.

DIY Cupcake Merry-Go-Round

I knew my three stands were not going to hold two dozen cupcakes, however, and I wanted to come up with one more way to display the yummy desserts (if you live in Charleston, these cupcakes are from Sugar, and they are heaven…pure heaven). I went back and forth on whether I wanted to make a ferris wheel or a merry-go-round, then decided that as cute as a ferris wheel would be, the merry-go-round would be easier to make.

DIY Marquee Letters

What better way to welcome the mother-to-be than a Marquee Sign in pretty circus colors?

I got this idea from Mini Marquee Sign with Lights by Oh Happy Day. I loved the colors she used! They were so pretty!

Now she made hers completely out of paper. I cheated a little with mine. They are made out of wooden letters and card stock paper. I am hoping to share a tutorial soon.

And I just had to get a picture of this adorable . He held the balloons. Such a gentleman!

DIY Cupcake Wrappers and Clown Toppers

Okay, get ready for some cuteness overload.

These are, by far, my most favorite project for the baby shower, but I cannot take credit for this idea. In fact, I initially was not even planning to make my own cupcake toppers. I had found what I thought to be “cute” cupcake toppers on Etsy.

Then they arrived in the mail.

No, I was beyond disappointed. They were so cheap looking.

And ugly.

I thought to myself, “Hell, I could make something cuter than that!”

Which is exactly when I went online and googled “Clown Cupcake Toppers”. And when I found these absolutely adorable Clown Cupcake Toppers DIY by Oh Happy Day, I was so excited.

I could make those!

I actually had little wooden balls left over from Christmas (when Version 2.0 and I made snowman ornaments). I didn’t have lollipop sticks, but I did have wooden skewers; so I cut those down to size.

The two things I didn’t have that Oh Happy Day suggested were the mini cupcake liners to make the hat and the hole puncher she used to make the clown’s collar from. And with me being in a time crunch, I had to be inventive.

The hat was a pretty easy fix. I had recently made paper tee-pees for my Valentine’s Day Decor, and tee pees are basically the same shape as clown hats. I just made a mini template, and started cutting out hats using the leftover scrapbook from my plate chargers. I didn’t save my template, but I did find one online that you can use, and I included that link at the bottom of this post.

For the collar, I wanted something a little more 3D. I sort of messed around with folding a tiny strip of paper accordion style to make a ruffled collar, but I didn’t like the way that looked. Then suddenly it dawned on me that a clown’s collar is very much like a ballerina tutu, and those are super easy to make! I just needed to downsize it. I grabbed some ribbon from my art drawer, some string, and got to threading. It worked!

I was so excited, I started digging through my leftover ribbon to see what I could find. And then I went to Walmart and bought some more.

(I told you I was in dangerous territory.)

Now that I had these precious cupcake toppers, I needed some cute cupcake wrappers. I looked online to see if I could find anything I liked, but nothing really stood out. I kept looking until it was no longer feasible to have anything mailed without paying an obnoxious amount in shipping, and even then, I hadn’t really found anything I loved.

And then the idea that I could just make them myself entered my brain.

Exasperated Sigh. It’s amazing to me, as much as I like DIYing, that these ideas don’t pop in my head sooner.

With a collection of cute scrapbook paper, I got busy.

I loved how all of the colors and patterns just went together. It was so cute.

Tissue Paper Pom Poms, Paper Pinwheels, and DIY Plate Chargers

The tissue paper pom poms were made using the following tutorials: Martha Stewart, The Idea Room, and Two Twenty One. They were very easy to make. I did need way more tissue paper than I initially realized, but the actual process was very simple.

The only issue I found was that scotch tape (as suggested online by many) did not hold them! I had them hung before my sister arrived in town, and the next morning…tissue paper pom pom carnage!!! Almost all had fallen to the floor. Ugh.

I used thumbtacks the second time around and had no issues.

I made the paper tissue pinwheels too, but honestly, those were a fluke. I was trying to make the pom poms and didn’t use enough paper. I quickly realized they could still be made into pinwheels, and I went with it.