101 Dalmatians Baby Shower

I can't believe that my sister's baby shower was FIVE months ago or that it's taken me this long to share her party with you. Honestly, I started thinking about what type of shower I wanted to throw before she was even pregnant. As she's a teacher, my initial inclination was to plan a Dr. Seuss themed party and I even started pinning all sorts of food and decorating ideas.

Then, she found out she was having a boy. I knew a small part of her was secretly hoping she would have a girl because all of her nursery ideas were girly and she seemed really upset about the "boy" options. I started looking around and stumbled across this set.

My sister was extremely attached to a Pongo stuffed animal her whole childhood so I knew she would fall in love with it. Of course, I was totally right. I decided to embrace the dalmatian vibe and carry the theme over into the shower.

At first, I was a bit frustrated because it was much harder to find inspiration for a dalmatian party. There are tons of Dr. Seuss baby showers splattered across the internet, but very few featuring dalmatians. Many of the ideas you'll see below were completely my own after hours of brainstorming. In the end, I was SO GLAD that I made the change. I loved the decorations and food choices that my mom and I came up with and thought the party was a super sweet way to celebrate my sister and my soon-to-arrive nephew.

Be Our Guest
I found the idea for my invitations on Etsy and really wanted to just order them and let someone else do the work. Unfortunately the creator closed her shop and was not taking orders. This resulted in me spending HOURS re-creating the idea in paint and powerpoint programs. Once I was satisfied with my work, I ordered the invites from Vistapint. I was ecstatic with the outcome, they looked great! I used the same fonts and colors to create stickers for the favors.

Front

Back

Sticker for favors

Food
101 Dalmatians takes place in England, so my idea was for the main course of the meal to be like an afternoon tea with small sandwiches, salads, chips in fancy paper cones, and a pitcher of citrus brewed tea. For appetizers I went with multiple "puppy chow" mixes and a "dalmatian" cheese ball with crackers and veggie sticks. Finally, I created a dessert table with a 6 layer dalmatian cake, dipped oreos decorated to match the theme, and sugar cookies shaped like bones that were individually wrapped as favors.

Cookies and Cream Puppy Chow

Red Velvet Puppy Chow

Chex Mix

Snacks served in dog food bowls from the Dollar Tree

Lunch Buffet

Finger sandwiches featuring turkey and bacon, ham and cheese, tuna salad, chicken salad, and vegetarian hummus pitas with mayo, mustard, and pickles on the side 

Chips in paper cones (I LOVE paper cones...)

More chips

Baby greens salad, fruit salad, and pasta salad

Missing from photos was one of the foods I was most "proud of" as it was my own original idea - a white cheese ball (mixture of cream cheese, white cheddar, and ranch dressing mix) with sliced olives pressed into it to look like dalmatian spots!

Homemade 6 layer cake - frosted in butter cream with black fondant spots

Slice of cake

Top: treat bags with red candy balls and kisses with custom stickers reading "Katrina's baby shower"
Middle: Cups of cookies and cream ("dalmatian") ice cream were served with the cake
Bottom: Bone shaped cookie favors

Close-up of the favors

Chocolate dipped oreos

Decor
As you can see, this party was all about the dalmatian doggies. I used dog bowls from the Dollar Tree for food, made centerpieces out of empty cans to look like "Kanine Krunchies" (the dog food advertised in the 101 Dalmatians movie), and put a copy of the 101 dalmatians book on each table. My mom went a little ebay crazy and purchased about 50 little dalmatian happy meal toys that we also used for table decorations and for a game.

Table decor

Another shot of the centerpiece and decorations on each table

We used one copy of the book as a guest book, the others were given as favors to any kids attending the party

I love dessert tables. I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to different set-ups and ideas because I love them so much. For my sister's shower I had the idea to create a banner over my dessert table out of actual baby onesies instead of paper cut outs. I purchased 3-6 and 6-9 month size onesies in colors to match the party and used my Cricut to cut out the letters and circles.

Onesie banner with dalmatian print fabric backdrop and tissue paper border

Dessert Table Setup

Close-up of one of the onesies

My sister really seemed to enjoy the shower and I was so pleased with how all the planning turned out. Happily for us all her pregnancy ended with a planned c-section (due to my sister's pre-existing heart condition that needed monitoring) and I now have a beautiful, perfect nephew to celebrate the upcoming holidays with.

My sister and I
(baby bear was hanging out on my back while I bustled around setting up)