A baby shower, Sly Little Fox was thrown this weekend with great joy. I just adore Debbie, the mom-to-be. It was a blessing working with her friends and to plan this special evening for her. Baby boy is due in July and his favorite animal is now officially a fox:)

Designing a baby shower, boy style can often seem a bit challenging. Making whimsically inspired pieces, like this hand-crafted fox mask go a long way towards bringing boyish style to life. Tutorial for the mask coming soon.

Touches of grown up design also helped sophisticate the feel of this shower. We used solid, dark wood furniture as our backdrop- bringing in a desk, a bookcase, side tables and even drilling a shelf up for the occasion. These heavy pieces made our playful little foxes really pop into life.

A boyish baby shower, Sly Little Fox

The baby shower, centered around our food table that featured a soup tasting bar.

Realizing how popular dessert tables have become I was excited to step out and try a new take on party food. The tasting turned out to be such a fun idea and would work for a variety of other party themes. Our guests were able to sample 3 different homemade soups, multiple breads, salads and other goodies. A tasting like ours would also be a lovely and economical way to do food for a larger gathering or a wedding as well.

The soups sat atop wooden candle holders, complete with paper made ribbon labels.

The entire food table was laid out underneath a gigantic fabric wall fox.

To make this fox I enlarged a black and white photo at my local copy center which cost less than $2. I traced the template onto fabric, cut it out, and dredged the whole thing in fabric stiffener before hanging it on the wall to dry. It only took about 3 hours to dry and was firmly attached in time for the party. Finding ways to make BIG design impacts for little dough is a huge part of my 30×30 vision. This would also be such a sweet addition to a nursery or other child’s space as temporary solution for a blank and lonely wall!

The soup was served in small glasses instead of large bowls to encourage tasting. Guests were able to go back to the bar multiple times to enjoy each of the homemade soups. We livened up the glasses for the baby shower, by tying embroidery thread around them.

A platter was set up with mozzarella and tomato toad-stools in a forest of leafy greens.

Along with the loaves we served Bread Spoons!

A tutorial on how to make these can be found here, they were a 2am insomniac idea of mine and ended up being such a fun party hit. As guests ate their soup the bread slowly melted away to reveal an actual spoon underneath- Tasty, functional and oh, so fun:)

Branches were placed around the room decorated with reindeer moss balls.

A homemade fox banner draped across our dessert-case. The free printable baby shower banner, can be downloaded here.

To add texture to the design we lined up all our desserts on a ladder bookcase, I called it the dessert-case. A fun way to incorporate items that were already in the home and it lent a fabulous eclectic feel to the baby shower.

The dessert-case featured animal crackers, fox cake pops, oreo’s, a pirouette log and the lovely watercolor fox boy picture I recently feel in love with.

Homemade cake pops- We chose to make them the easy (cheater’s way) and I was supremely happy with how they came out. Their look is a bit disheveled, perfect for an woodsy fox theme. Plus they were amazing to taste! A simple cake mix swirled with frosting and frozen into balls, stuck with sticks & then dipped into chocolate. We served each pop individually in a shot glass filled with pudding and smashed almonds as dirt.

The budget for our dessert-case was small so we used mostly grocery store food. It is amazing how classy bagged candy becomes when taken out of its packaging. Bowls of tootsie-rolls were instantly transformed when unwrapped and re-covered with pretty ribbon.

For after dinner coffee service each guest received a ginger bread fox cookie on their cup.

Another way we saved money was to create our own cookie cutters. All you need is a template of your design printed and cut out on heavy card-stock. Then simply roll out your dough and use a pairing knife to cut around your template. Although it does take a bit more time, it allows you to make cookies in any shape you can imagine. Foxes now…. Perhaps flowers later?!?

Fox broach favors were given out to each guest and received with joy. Tutorial to come soon for these sweet & sly foxes. They just look so boyishly adorable pinning up a spring scarf.

Favors were pinned up on a woodsy looking wreath and greeted guests with a welcome upon arrival. When the shower was drawing to a close we simply flipped the sign backwards to reveal a thankful farewell for each girl.

Photo credits Michael Chan @ theimageisfound

The invites were a great start for this baby shower, boyish theme. They are available for free download- baby shower, invitations.

blessings.