The most unique activity that we did with all of the guests was to create alphabet artwork for the nursery. All of the women in attendance loved this activity! This was a great project for a number of reasons:
1. Crafting and decorating letters was a good ice breaker at the baby shower
2. It took less than an hour to decorate the entire alphabet
3. Each of the momma-to-be's friends helped to decorate the nursery
4. Each letter reflects the personality of the woman who decorated it
5. One of our very good friends lives out of state but was still able to participate by decorating some letters and mailing them to us before the shower.
Here is a step-by-step list of how to make this activity work at any baby shower:
Before the Baby Shower
1. Purchase all of the wooden letters (and an "&" if you like but one of our crafty ladies made one on her Cricut which worked wonderfully!) in different sizes and fonts. We purchased our letters from Jo-Ann Fabrics, Michaels, and Hobby Lobby (3 of the girls hosting split up the alphabet to purchase at different stores). The letters we collected ranged from 4 - 12 inches.
2. Pick which base color(s) you would like them to be. We had momma-to-be select paint colors (around 9) and then repeated the colors through the alphabet. We laid out all of the letters and selected colors carefully, making sure that the same colors didn't end up next to or above/below one another. This ensured the letters were in a 'random' pattern. We put a little paint dot and the name on the back so that we could remember once we got back home to paint.
3. Paint letters in the selected colors. We had already painted most of our letters with a primer coat, but a few that came home with us to be painted were bare wood. For the primer coat, you can use an actual primer paint or white acrylic. As long as you use matte paint, it won't really matter so just use what you have handy. Painting the colors did go much better on the primed letters and required fewer coats to cover all the grain.
Without primer -- you can still see the wood through the first coat.
With primer -- one or two coats over the white were all we needed.
Our portion of the alphabet. We opted to put the smallest letters on colored plaques to shake it up a bit. To do this we painted the letters white and the plaques whichever color had been selected. We then used a hot glue gun to stick the letters to the plaques.
Also note that we chose to paint the sides of the letters the same color as the faces.
Day of the Baby Shower
3. Set out all of your crafting supplies at the baby shower. We used cheap, plastic paint drop cloths to cover the tables and had some large t-shirts for coverups if anyone wanted one. Other supplies at our event to decorate letters included: acrylic paint in various colors, paint brushes of different sizes, stencils, ribbon, mod podge, scrap-booking paper, glue gun, and scissors (we should have had more of these because they were in high demand!)
4. Set the baby shower guests loose to be crafty! Have everyone pick a letter to start with and begin decorating. Have people pay attention to the letters above, below and to the left and right of the one they are decorating so that you don't end up with all polkadots, stripes, etc. in a row together. We encouraged the guests who felt they were not creatively-inclined to use stencils, ribbon, and shapes cut from scrap-booking paper. Other guests were happy to paint the designs they had in mind.
Stencils were a perfect tool for this project and made it easy
for some of the less confident artists to dive right in.
Shapes cut from scrapbooking paper and then mod podged onto
the letters looked great and were easy to make. We had a
queue for the scissors though, so more pairs would have been better.
Special request from Daddy-to-be :)
5. Let all of the paint, mod podge, and glue dry while the rest of the baby shower activities are taking place. We then used one of those cardboard filing boxes with the hand holes to pack all the letters both to and from the shower. (They cost about $1 at office supply stores, but you usually have to buy 5 or 10 at a time. We use them for everything and, because they are so inexpensive, you can just give them away and not worry about getting them back!) Don't try to use a plastic bag. Letters are pokey and will rip through it.
6. We sent momma-to-be home with all of her finished letters in said box. Daddy-to-be helped her hang up the letters in the nursery with command strips and they sent us this picture when they were done. We think it looks pretty amazing!
Happy crafting to you!
-Venture Sisters
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