“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” Baby Shower

Wondering how in the world a “reduce, reuse, recycle” theme can be used for a baby shower?  Read on, friend, and you shall see.  : )

My good friend, Lindsay, is pregnant.  Although by the time this post is published, she might officially be a mama!  As we chatted about what type of baby shower to throw, the theme of “recycle” kept popping up.  You know, it kept cycling through our brains again and again…bad pun.  But really, it did.  You see, Lindsay and her husband, Jeremy, spent the first years of their marriage teaching in Namibia, Africa.  Through this experience (along with their conservation-minded upbringing), they have developed a serious passion for taking care of the resources for which they are stewards.  To honor this passion, we challenged ourselves to throw a more resourceful baby shower.

Our main theme was “reduce TEARS, reuse HUGS, recycle LOVE.”  We also stuck a sign on the front door that said “go GREEN baby.”  All of the letters were dicut from old newspaper.

Since it’s always nice to have thank you cards addressed and ready to send out, Ellen whipped up these nifty envelopes made from old magazines.  Thanks to my sister Hannah for the idea! 

And speaking of mailing items, we realized that the amount of paper and money that goes into mailing invitations is quite significant, so we sent out electronic Evites.  This actually worked well, because Lindsay requested that as many of their gifts be used as possible.  We were able to put their wish list on the Evite and guests responded with what they planned to bring.  We later learned that this website actually would have worked even better, but we’ll have to save that for another time.  For anyone wondering, Lindsay actually received some very quality gifts.  Most baby items are gently used (heck, sometimes they grow out of things so fast that they’re never used), plus there are tons of great deals on Craigslist and at thrift stores, so it wasn’t hard to track down some pretty sweet stuff.  All of our shower game prizes were REgifted items, too. 

While we decided it would be best not to reuse food (ha!), we did fill old bottles with flowers, and we also donned a linen tablecloth made by Haitian women who are working to support their families—something we thought Lindsay would also appreciate.  (Love the cloth, Mom!  It washed up great, too.) 

Instead of disposable plates and napkins, we used cloth napkins and real plates. 

Mason jars served as cups (they were borrowed from a friend who used them in her wedding—she was so happy that someone else was putting them to work), and the drinks were kept cold in a metal tub of ice. 

Oh, and I can’t forget the paper straws! 

I also tossed up a simple garland made of scrap paper for some added decoration.

Since Lindsay will be using cloth diapers on her babe, we hung strips of paper from clothespins on the mantel.  Guests then wrote blessings, bits of wisdom, and encouragement on the paper, along with sweet little notes on the wooden clothespins.  Now laundry will be so much more fun for Lindsay, don’t you think?  : )

I love throwing a themed shower, and this was definitely a fun one.  What unique shower ideas have you used?  No sense reinventing the wheel when you can just recycle great ideas, right?!