DIY Baby Shower: Celebrating Baby Hippo!

Our co-founder Maura is expecting her second child, so here’s how we threw her a (surprise!) baby shower…

Okay, let’s preface this by saying Maura’s not actually having a hippo, it’s just a nickname Eve, baby #1, has given her unborn sibling… and it’s stuck! So with Simran, Sassy’s unofficial social secretary, doing cheffy things in Paris, the rest of us took it upon ourselves to plan a little shindig to celebrate this awesome mama-to-be (for the second time!). This is how we DIY’d a baby shower in a few days…

Venue and Décor

We asked around a few of our fave places, but none could accommodate us on short notice, so we eventually decided to transform our beautiful terrace in our Garage Society space into a chic baby shower venue.

There was a moment where we considered having the soirée on a boat, but then decided against it – we didn’t want to risk a heavily pregnant woman feeling sick on a boat, and secondly what if she went into early labour…! These were the hushed discussions that went on while Maura was at meetings outside of the office.

Read more: Sassy Mama’s Ultimate Baby Shower Guide

Lauren and Lexi bought balloons and pastel paper products from Living Plaza the morning of the party; not only is everything in there reasonably priced ($12!), but the prints on the paper plates and cups are super cute. We ended up sticking a series of paper plates in different shapes and colours on the office window as a backdrop… #hacks, an idea courtesy of our party planner extraordinaire and Sassy Mama, Kat (who is also the co-founder of Bespoke Parties). Never underestimate the power of blu-tack.

A quick public service announcement to those who happened to be walking around the Sheung Wan end of Queen’s Road Central on a recent Friday afternoon: if you saw (and were annoyed by) a bunch of balloons floating in the air, they were ours! We take full responsibility for them, but not for the gust of wind that blew them off the terrace, despite them being tied to a patio table… #SassyHijinks.

Apart from the balloons and the paper products, flower delivery service BYDEAU kindly sent us three sets of The Jules with yellow floral arrangements. They made perfect and pretty table settings for our DIY shower, and Maura got to take one home after.

Food

We arranged delivery from one of our favourite Tex-Mex spots, Little Burro, which was perfect as the guest of honour was making noise about craving guac. Their food always goes down as a treat at Sassy HQ, plus they deliver too! Just in time for junk season, methinks! Seriously, you don’t want to be on your next junk and not have skinny burritos, chips, guac and make-your-own tacos from LB on hand.

Sweet Secrets sent us a tower of beautiful baby-themed cupcakes for dessert, which were quickly devoured by us and shared with our friendly neighbours at Garage Society. No, seriously, they looked absolutely adorable, decorated with baby ducks, bibs, booties and baby bottles. A great way to keep it gender-neutral, too, as no one knows if Baby Hippo is a boy or a girl yet! We added some baby shower candles to the cupcakes (available at PartyTime, where we also got Maura’s “Mum To Be” sash, $78).

Read more: The Best Cakes in Hong Kong

As Maura couldn’t drink champagne (and neither will the mama-to-be at your bash), Surmayee picked up non-alcoholic champagne from the supermarket. It’s essentially fizzy apple juice, but it has a cork that can be popped. Pour it into a champagne flute and voilà! It just tastes sweeter than the real deal. The perfect way to toast Baby Hippo’s impending arrival.

Activities

We thought about post-lunch activities, and concluded that something simple that all of us could do would work best. You can go nuts with all sorts of easy-to-put-together baby shower games off Pinterest. We opted to decorate onesies, with Kat sourcing some plain white ones and fabric markers. The onesies (sleeveless undershirts) were from Mothercare ($170 for five). Fabric markers were from Wise-Kids ($109).

Err… I’ll be honest, not all of us are artistically inclined, but we tried. Jess opted for writing on hers, “Hug Life”, as did I, writing “I’m Cooler Than My Sister” (sorry, Eve!). We had variations of hippos drawn on some from Lexi, Lauren and Elly, and Kat even made hers look like a Toronto Blue Jays jersey (shout out to Papa Thompson!).

One of our neighbours at Garage Society is Claire, the lovely lady behind The Lion Rock Press. She printed off some adorable note cards for Team Sassy to write messages to Baby Hippo. We loved writing words of wisdom for the bubba, all of which will be eventually bound for Maura as a keepsake from all of us. You can easily pick up similar ones from around town or design them yourself and get them printed off. Or better yet, get in touch with The Lion Rock Press!

Read more: The Best Baby Shower Gifts

I have to give a small shout out to airplay blow dry bar. They very kindly sponsored a blowout for both Maura and I before the occasion – it was also the perfect way to get her out of the office for a covert “meeting” and looking and feeling fab, while everyone else set up for the surprise festivities in the office. Unfortunately, Maura got severely delayed at a prior appointment and missed getting her hair done by the sweet ladies at the salon… I’ll have to treat her to a blowout post-baby to make up for it, as I know she was looking forward to it.

Gear yourself up, readers, the best bit of the entire afternoon was a piñata made by Niki. Yeah, we went a bit retro with that one. After trying to source one and realising that it wasn’t feasible in a matter of days, Niki took it upon herself to get crafty and made one from scratch, filling it with as much sugar as possible. Off it went home with Maura so Eve could enjoy all the sweets! Props to Niki for her creative talent.

So, mamas, if you’re planning to go the DIY route when planning a baby shower for a friend, all you need is a delivery of delicious food and sweet treats, delivery of flowers to brighten up a space, beautifully-designed notecards and ideas off Pinterest… oh, and a fabulous team to help coordinate everything! Happy celebrating!