How To Host The Perfect Succulent Themed Baby Shower

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🌵 A couple weekends ago, I went to the cutest baby shower! Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to a lot of and even hosted a couple of really cute baby showers, but this one was different because every little detail was thought about and executed accordingly. 🌵

My friends Maghen and Dave just had their first child, a little girl that they named her Lyla Faye. Faye is a family name that will be their daughter’s middle name.

The nursery is succulent themed, so it was only fitting that the baby shower was too.

Here’s a photo of Lyla right after she was born. 

Lyla Adorable baby | Busy Life Healthy Wife

As soon as I walked into Maghen’s house, the theme was apparent. Everything from the front entry way to the games to the food all tied perfectly together. This is why I KNEW I had to feature it on my blog – of course, with her permission.

Update: This blog post was originally posted several years ago, but my site crashed and I lost it. I had some of the text and all the photos, but I dreaded re-writing it because it was so amazing before and I was unsure if I could replicate it. So, I finally decided to sit down and finish it…again. 

Maghen’s cousin decorated the entry way table with balloons, succulents, and a note to place all diapers there. To the left of the door, were hanging succulents that Maghen used to decorate her home normally. Further to the right was a long, white table  with a cactus  runner a succulent pop ups and centerpieces. All were amid a soft pink background and were among little pink puff balls that ran alongside the table runner.

There were several games to be played and things to be accomplished, but not your usual ones. Among the game table: the diaper raffle with an adorable white cactus with gold accents to place your tickets in. I picked up a pink clothes pin and put it on, but wait! You weren’t not looking for people who say “baby.” No-sir-ree. You were looking for anyone who crossed their legs or ankles, and Dave’s sister one that hands down. To be honest, I never even stood a chance. I just about always cross my legs or ankles. Maghen knew this too about herself, which is why she didn’t even play.

So, here are my tips to having an amazing succulent baby shower:

🌵 One – Have a plan. 🌵

Before you get started with planning a succulent themed baby shower, check out and utilize the general tips listed in my post on hosting the perfect baby shower.

If you decide to just “wing it,” you may end up hosting a baby shower that doesn’t flow aesthetically or that ends up costing you sooo much money (when it didn’t have to). You don’t have to be a super planner, but a little bit of pre-planning can go a long way.

🌵 Two – Pick a color to go along with your theme. 🌵

Although cacti and succulents are usually variations of greens and teals, you can still define your main color and have accent colors. This definitely helps when when picking napkins, silverware, and just those tiny details that won’t have cacti or succulents or may not have them.

Maghen’s primary color was teal-green with a primary accent of light pink. White was also heavily used, probably due to its neutral qualities. Shades of gold, mostly in the balloons, were used to help make things pop! 

You can see in the photos below how the use of these colors helped to tie the theme together, whether that was with little puff balls, balloons, flowers, etc.

🌵 Three – Choose Cactus or Desert Themed Food and Beverages 🌵

You want to choose foods and drinks that fit within your theme or even your colors scheme. In this section, I’ll explore what Maghen used for her succulent themed baby shower, but you can use whatever you prefer.

Taco Bar – Maghen had Americanized Mexican food at her baby shower. Instead of just going to Taco Bell (while you could do that) and put the food out, a taco bar with taco meat, cheese, rice, salsa, lettuce, and all things tacos were offered to her guests, marked by cute cactus display cards. Jessica, Maghen’s cousin, told me that she made most of the food, but it was still a family affair. Meaning, you should get the fam to help you out here!

Find a way to make your taco bar (or other food) stand out. You can use fun containers, use themed cards, have a specialized section – like this salsa bar.

salsa bar at cactus baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife
bottled water with succulent tape for cactus baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife

Cactus Water Bottle and Soda Bottle Labels – I’m sure you’ve seen printable labels that you can place on soda cans or bottled water. But, let’s face it, those are a pain in the a**. You have to use a ton of ink, print them, cut them out, and finally tape them to the can or bottle. Or laminate them then tape them. But as soon as the labels get wet, they fall apart and make a yucky wad of wet paper.

To avoid the labels falling off, you could put clear packing tap over the labels BEFORE the drinks are cold. You could also laminate all of the labels, cut them out, and tape them to the drinks BEFORE they get wet with packing tape.

Alternatively, you could do what Jessica did and use themed duct tape. This never even crossed my mind. It’s so easy to use and there are all sorts of different colors and designs.

Cactus Juice –

Whether you use cactus juice or another type of drink, having a themed beverage can really tie in a baby shower. But don’t forget to have water for those that don’t want to drink Cactus Juice. Cactus Juice is non-alcoholic, but you can always make it alcoholic (I suppose).

There are different variations of this recipe. If you want to have it more of a punch, you can add green sherbert (yum!).

If you want to use one of these drink containers and/or avoid dairy, you can use this recipe, altering amounts to your taste and to the container’s size:

Cactus Juice for succulent baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife
succulent cupcake for cactus baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife

Cupcakes with Succulent Icing Designs –

Maghen bought cupcakes from a local bakery, Small Cakes. She had three different flavors: wedding cake, red velvet, and chocolate. All cupcakes had amazing succulent icing designs. She housed the cupcakes on tiered cupcake holders.

Additional/backup cupcakes were stored elsewhere and bought out to fill in gaps. This helped to create a flawless look at the desert table.

close up cactus cupcake for cactus baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife

🌵 Four – Get Themed Silverware, Plates, & Napkins 🌵

I suggest using a mix of succulent themed items with color scheme items. Generally speaking, paper plates with prints on them are a little pricey. If you want to have them, search around because sometimes you can find them at the dollar store. Also, you could have your meal plates in a plain color and the dessert plates as cactus themed because they cost less and people don’t always eat dessert.

Maghen had gold utensils that were housed in these adorable plastic cactus cups/utensil holders. (Sometimes you can find these at Dollar Tree.) She had pale pink plates and a mix of bright pink, pale green, and bright green napkins. All of this fits perfectly with her color scheme and the cactus theme.

succulent baby shower table with a pink table cloth, cactus utensil holder, colored paper plates and colored napkins | Busy Life Healthy Wife | Navigate your busy life and learn how to start a business

🌵 Step Five – Have Themed Games 🌵

There are many things you can do here. You can play a ring toss game where you toss rings onto a paper, blow up, or plaster cactus. You can have bingo, word search, or “do you know mommy,” or any other normal paper game just printed on paper that has succulents or incorporates the theme in some way. You can create them yourself in Canva or pay for someone else to create it via Etsy.

Baby Shower Bingo for a cacti baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife

Maghen’s baby shower had a good mix of theme and non-theme related games.

She had Baby Bingo, where the attendees wrote down gifts they thought she would receive. If she opened a gift that you wrote down, you would mark that. Then, it’s just basic BINGO rules. (Note: attendees can totally put down what they bought as a little cheat. lol)

We all know the diaper pen game, and we played it. But this one had a twist to it; instead of not saying “baby” or “newborn,” you couldn’t cross your legs or your ankles. Ahh! This was so hard. I lost right away.

 

Diaper raffles are also a great thing to include. We all know that babies go through diapers like CRAZY, so having a diaper raffle is super helpful for the mom-to-be.

To keep it in theme, have the raffle cards have cacti on them. Don’t forget to make a sign and have something to put the tickets in (a cactus?).

In addition to all of those things, Maghen’s mom hid all these tiny cacti around the house. Whoever found the most, won a prize. There were a few kids at the baby shower. This task kept them occupied and entertained for the majority of the shower (and they won the prize too!).

ceramic cactus container for diaper raffle | Busy Life Healthy Wife
colorful dream catcher hangin in a window with lgiht shinning through - created at a cactus themed baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife | How to host the perfect succulent baby shower

When I think of succulents, I think of whimsical things too. One of the cool things that Maghen really wanted to have at the shower was the combined creation of a dream catcher.

She had all these different styles and colors of ribbons. Upon entering the house, we were told to pick a ribbon and cut it to the size we thought Maghen’s belly was.

Jessica, Maghen’s cousin, and another family member created the actually dream catcher via a kit they bought from Target. Then, all the ribbons the attendees cut were tied to the bottom of the dream catcher.

This dream catcher is now in Lyla’s room.

🌵 Six- Have plastic, paper, ceramic cacti 🌵

You can find succulents all over in all types of mediums. I really suggest going to Dollar Tree, Dollar General, 5 and Below, and Hobby Lobby. Remember, Hobby Lobby has sales and coupons all the time. You’ll want to think outside the box. You can use cups as utensil holders. A cookie jar as a holder for the diaper raffles. Or you can use a candle holder as a table accent. The ideas are endless.

🌵 Seven – Have Actual Succulents 🌵

Maghen loves succulents, and why not? They’re cute and fairly easy to take care of. It’s nice to see real and even fake succulents at a succulent baby shower. I have seen fake ones for $1 at Target and less than that at other places when there are sales. You can also sign up for Succulent Studios to start getting succulents delivered to your house. You get two a month. You just have to keep them alive until the baby shower (at least). If you want real succulents and don’t want to have an autoshipment, you can go to any of your local home improvement stores, some grocery stores (bought one at Publix once), your local nursery, your town’s farmers market, or even buy online.

table succulent in gold rim, gladd container | Busy Life Healthy Wife | How to host the perfect succulent baby shower

🌵 Eight – Table Cloth and Table Runners 🌵

The best kind of table cloth to have at a baby shower is probably a recyclable plastic one. However, if you like having themed parties, you may want to invest in a sturdier one that can be cleaned. Maghen had pink table clothes with table runners that had succulents printed on them. This adorable table runner was actually bought at Oriental Trading, but sometimes you can find things like this at Walmart, Dollar Tree, Amazon, etc. You can also get a thick plastic, colored tablecloth and use a cactus border from the teacher’s section at your local craft store or office supply store or print off images. Then glue them on or use ribbons and bows to attach them.

🌵 Nine – Succulent Themed Invitations and Thank You Cards 🌵

I always think that this is a nice touch. As a host, you may or may not be sending out the invitations and thank you cards. If you are, then get some blank invitations and thank you cards like the ones pictured and fill in the details.

Alternatively, you can use a card creation company to mail cards for you. One such place is sincerely.com. I just received a birthday invitation from there. Also, through Photoshop or Word (by downloading images from Creative Commons (free to use) or Pixabay or by using Canva, you can create your own invitations and thank you cards.

Thank You Cards for a Succulent Baby Shower Busy Life Healthy Wife

🌵 Ten – Make It Your Own 🌵

It’s so important to just have fun and make it your own. Add little accents, balloons, cardboard stands, games, etc. that fit your guests, and food that you think they will like. Balloons are cheap, you can get them at Dollar Tree. Don’t forget that most places have discounts for bulk shopping and coupons can be found in the Sunday paper, on the store website, by being apart of rewards programs, and on sites like Retail Me Not. Don’t forget to get your money back by taking a photo of your receipt and utilizing apps like iBotta or Receipt Hog. If you want some sort of fancy display, Oriental Trading has you covered there. Sometimes you can find really cool things like that at Target too. Thrifting for containers can result in really unique and cool cacti displays.

I know I mention it in this blog post, but I’m going to mention it again. It’s important to know your guests. Know how many people are going to be there first and foremost. This can help you determine the rest of the baby shower.

And congrats to all mothers-to-be and the family surrounding them!

If this was helpful or if you think there is something else that could be added to the list, please comment below.

how to have the perfect succulent baby shower | Busy Life Healthy Wife

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