Posted by cassie on Thursday, 20 July, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
So…. we all had to do it, although not as much fun as shopping for baby clothes. That’s right! Shop for maternity wear. I don’t know about you and the area you live in but I had a hard time finding clothing I wanted to wear! I may not be completely hip and up-to-date on all the trends (mainly bc they don’t fit my body type or my budget lol) but come on! I don’t want to look frumpy either.
Enter my solutions! Consignment shops and Goodwill were hit and I found a few items there. I wandered into Walmart and Target and found a very itty bitty section to choose from, but still managed to snag a few tanktops and capri pants. Anything to make it through the FL summer time at the end of the pregnancy.;) I tried shopping online through places like babycenter.com, etc but they were just a little too expensive for me.
See let me fill you in a bit for you to understand my hesitation to spend a lot on maternity wear. I found out I was pregnant at 5 months. Yes, I was one of those girls that didn’t have symptoms.. Anywho! I had roughly 3 weeks of excitement to run around and be thrilled before I was put on bedrest for the duration. So my thoughts were why spend a lot of $$ on something you are going to wear for a couple of months while laying on the stupid couch. (For the record, I still hate my couch but that’s for another post lol)
After my limited success shopping in stores and now being on bedrest I turned to the internet. It certainly helped my through my endless days of laying on my side and looking at the same things over and over and over again. I logged into eBay and found some great bargains! Even some NWOT (new with out tags) and NWT (new with tags) items!! YIPPIE!
My eBaying tips:
- Shop for lot items. You can a larger selection of items for less
- Don’t be afraid. In the past I’ve had problems with receiving my items, simply open up a PayPal dispute and 9 out of 10 times you get a full refund.
- Resell the items you don’t like/didn’t fit
Posted by cassie on Friday, 14 July, 2006 @ 8:48 am
I know, I know you aren’t supposed to throw your own but I participated to the point where it would have been easier to do it myself. That’s what I get for trying to please everyone. Lesson learned. But really in the end all that mattered was my family loves me enough to throw me a wonderful baby shower.
A lot of these suggestions are stuff that we did, heard about, etc. Feel free to add any you may have!
Ok here goes…
Invitation
- If you are creative and have the time - make your own! Here are a few links to get you started ABC Invitation Baby Shoes Choo Choo Train
- Want to save on postage? Make the invitation a postcard!
- Declare if children and men are allowed to come on the invitation and address the envelopes accordingly
- If you are registering at multiple places, be sure to include that too
- Keep a list of people that are invited w/ phone numbers and mark them off as they RSVP.
- Make people RSVP even if they aren’t coming. A good rule of thumb is to ask for their RSVP one week before the party. This will allow you time to finalize the amount of food, etc.
- Don’t be afraid to try services like evite.com or email. Just think of the demographic that will be there and if they will be able to respond or if a paper invite is best for them.
- Carry the theme through out the shower from the invitations to the decorations. You can even do what we did and based our invitations and theme off from the nursery theme!
Food/Menu
- Pick a diverse menu that all of your guests will eat, including non-meat items! (Hope they’ll make extra so you can freeze it for after the baby is born)
- Make sure to get a picture of the baby cake or cupcakes! Then invite everyone to dig in
- Have a permanent marker handy for people to write their names on their cups. Waste not, want not afterall
Decorating/Getting Ready
- Don’t hang streamers from your ceiling fans - the result is annoying, loud and a pain to get off
- Finish cleaning the night before - never rely on having enough time the day of
Running Smoothly
- Too many games can potentially annoy the guests. Don’t forget the prizes
- Have a clearly defined start and end time. Allow plently of time for opening of gifts, gossiping, etc but don’t make it drag out either. It’s a very fine line to walk, but I have every confidence you can do it!
- Have disposable cameras around so guests take plently of pictures, or if you have multiple digital cameras have some spare AA batteries around. Yea, we had trouble with ours dying half way through the gifts
- A designated note taker will make sending Thank you cards much easier. We left space on the RSVP list to list out the gifts and it made it super easy for me to send thank you cards since the address was right there too!