Miriam of Shreveport - A Lord of the Rings Baby Shower

 My sister, Jamie, is a huge Lord of the Rings fan - tattoos, her dog is named Arwen of Rivendell, the whole nine yards. So when it came time for my mom, other sister, and myself to plan her baby shower, we wanted to incorporate a LOTR theme, and we are all happy with how it turned out!


When guests arrived, they found this sign on the front door:

Our sign on the front door

Sign from the movie

 Then, our little mimosa bar awaited them:

Our Eye of Sauron Mimosa Bar

We got the plastic gold champagne glasses from Party City, and I got the carafes on Amazon. The juices we had were:

Pine of an Apple (pineapple juice)
Juice of an Apple (apple juice)
Juice that is Orange (orange juice)
Crushed Cranberries (cranberry juice)

We also had pineapple slices, raspberries, and strawberry slices for garnish.

I made the Eye of Sauron from cereal boxes, tape, black fabric, and a yellow balloon I colored on with Sharpies.

Eye of Sauron from movie

Now, onto the food! We tried to stick with foods from the movies, but on some of the items we just did a play on the names:

The pinwheels were well-complimented (which was nice since this was my first time ever making pinwheels!). I found the recipe on Taste of Home and made them the night before and refrigerated overnight. I cut them right before the shower and served with salsa on the side.

The punch was so super easy and was also really good. Right before the shower started, I scooped 1 quart of raspberry sherbet and 1/2 quart of vanilla ice cream into the punch bowl and then poured 4-liters of ginger ale over (which made it foamy and really neat-looking). I scooped some additional sherbet and ice cream into the bowl when it started to get low and topped with another 2-liters of ginger ale.

For the mushrooms, we used a recipe from All Recipes, but doubled it and used one part spinach and one part kale. These also took us longer to prep than 15 minutes, so I would allow at least 30 minutes to prep and 30 for baking to be safe (unless you are really quick in the kitchen, ha!).

I've made mini-parfaits for other showers and they are always popular. I ordered the dessert cups and mini-spoons on Amazon. We put a generous dollop of light vanilla yogurt on the bottom, then layered with a thin banana slice, thin strawberry slice, sprinkle of granola, and squirt of honey before topping with another dollop of the yogurt. Easy and pretty!

I've made cupcake push pops for other showers and they are always a big hit, but I wanted to make them more LOTR-ish, so I found a recipe for honey cake from The Geeky Chef and tweaked it a little. I had regular local honey (not clover), which worked fine and I also skipped the baking flour because I didn't have any on hand. I baked as cupcakes instead of in a round pan and changed the baking time to 15 minutes. I put the cupcakes on a wire rack and after they cooled, sliced them horizontally into 2-3 layers.  I then layered the cupcake with buttercream icing in the containers I bought on Amazon, and topped with toasted walnuts.

Okay, onto these fabulous cookies! I have ordered from SugaredHeartsBakery on Etsy 5-6 times in the past year-and-a-half (see other shower blog posts for cookies) and have always been amazed! Keely is a straight-up cookie artist! These were vanilla flavored (she also makes a mean almond flavored) and so soft and delicious, even after shipping them from Arizona to Louisiana! She packs them with care and I've never had one arrive broken or messed up. I usually message her with a crazy idea a couple of months before whatever shower or party I'm currently throwing, and she goes out of her way to make them perfect for that occasion! Seriously, check her out! She is also on Facebook.

I made this banner on my computer and printed on white card stock (110 lb) and glued burlap strips to the bottom of each letter to give it a more woodsy feel. I then just hole-punched two holes at the top of each letter and threaded with twine. My mom and I had each bought Jamie a LOTR onesie, so we taped them to the mantle to complete the look. 

I included the following note at the bottom of the invitation, so Jamie received lots of books for Miri's library, each with a special message to mom and/or daughter to look back on:

Here's one thing that won't be hard, 

please bring a book instead of a card. 

Whether Cat in the Hat or Winnie The Pooh, 

sign the inside cover with a note from you! 

This was special for Jamie and everyone liked the idea - you can get many books for even less than the price of a card anyways! :) My mom gave her Jamie's favorite book she saved from when Jamie was a child to give to Miri, which was really neat. 

I made and printed out Baby Shower Bingo and a riddle game on white card stock (110 lb) for the guests to play during the shower, and the prizes were the necklace/pin seen in the above picture. 

Picture courtesy of party guest, @zombeemama, on Instagram

For the favors, I bought some mini wine bottles at my local grocery store and peeled off the labels. I had printed off new labels and put them on the wine. I also added a ring pop to each bundle before wrapping in tulle and tying with ribbon. 

Overall, the shower was a lot of hard work (especially since I was pretty out of my element), but my sister and the guests loved it and I am so happy with how it turned out! Now, onto the next shower! :)