Monkeying around a Baby Shower!

Recently, I put on a baby shower for a friend here in Des Moines. To the theme of Sock Monkeys (since her nursery was jungle theme), I made a diaper cake topped with monkeys and jungle animal cupcakes as part of the decorations.For the diaper cake, I wrapped disposable infant diapers, Pampers Swaddlers, around two Diaper Genie Refills as part of the base. Using a rubber band to wrap it all together, I then took a baby blanket around the base, securing it with ribbon. For the second layer, I took individually rolled and banded (with rubber bands) diapers and set them upright. I wrapped another themed-matching blanket around that layer securing it with a different color of ribbon. Finally to decorate the top as a third laying, covering up the diapers, I found a large Sock Money with magnet hands and feet (for holding a third blanket and three ornament/key chain Sock Monkeys). It turned out really cute and was relatively a simple decoration once I figured out how to put it together.
The jungle themed cupcakes started out as a box mix and generic store bought frosting. My shopping list was full of different candies for embellishments such as Carmel corn, pretzels sticks, Dots, mini marshmallows, Vanilla Wafer's, food coloring, and colored-decorating frosting. Baking a variety of white and chocolate cupcakes, I then frosted them frozen with the corresponding frosting. From there, I could embellish them into monkeys, zebras, and lions. The cupcakes not only served as the dessert for the shower, but made for an excellent center piece.

Using these as my main decorations for the shower, I added only a few others things and pronounced the shower decorated. I added some children's books about monkeys (it was also a book shower), Sock Monkey scrapbook paper as the guest book and invitations (found at Michaels), and some jungle themed baby clothes and leftover diapers rolled up and tied with different colored ribbons. This not only made a nice presentation, but was my gift to the honoree.


The shower turned out to be a special event. The monkey theme and book shower was a huge hit with both the honoree and guests. Most importantly, I had fun trying decorate and learned a lot putting it all together.