Helene's baby shower

Finally got the time to post a party that I had hosted last week! It's a baby shower for my labmate, Helene. I had lots of help from other girls in lab hosting the shower, especially Kristina, Stacy, and Ming.

Theme: afternoon tea
Few secrets that I'd like to share on how to plan a party on a budget-
1) shop smart (think Target, Ross, Goodwill)
2) have a theme
3) and of course not paying for catering is a plus too (all home-prepared food)!

The invitation: Printed on textured stock card ($6 for whole pack from Target), add color-matched ribbon, and voila! Kristina handcrafted the envelope from brown paper lunch bag.


The table-scape: already owned serving plates, plus additional tableware that we just bought for the party (the silver servers are $4-6 each, teacups $2, teapots $3-5 from local Goodwill store), tulip centerpiece, plain table cloth. We decided not to use anything disposable for the party, and they would cost about the same anyways.





For additional personal touch, Kristina calligraphed tag for each teacup and label for the food.








The menu:












1) Cupcakes:
- Robin's nest cupcakes. Inspired by Martha, but not quite the same! The robins are made from white chocolate-orange ganache rolled in blue sugar (a drop of blue food color on cup of sugar!), sit on a bed of toasted coconut.
- Chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate medallions.
- Lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting.






2) Assortment of scones. Tweak the dough and you can get multiple kind of scones! Recipe from KAF: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/
biscuits-and-scones





3) Tarts and quiches. Shhh... they are made with store-bought crust! Just mold into mini tart pans. I filled them with chocolate ganache (also for the chocolate cupcake frosting) or white chocolate-orange ganache (also for the robins). Also pecan tarts made by Ming.








4) Assortment of sandwiches:
- Smoked salmon, cucumber, dill, and cream cheese on pumpernickel bread (beautiful color!).
- Pecan-crusted brie sandwich on cinnamon bread.
- Waldorf chicken salad on panettone.








5) Chocolate crinkle cookies (courtesy of Jessica), white chocolate truffles (yep same as those robins), cheese sticks, and coconut biscotti (courtesy of Stacy).








6) Endive boats. Bacon, sweet potato, cream fresche, and chives. Super easy to assemble and gorgeous looking too! Stacy made these.

7) Stuffed pumpkin (yum!) made by Negin.








8) And of course the teas! Courtesy of Negin. Coconut black tea was my favorite.