With Bettijo’s due date just weeks away it seems like a fun time to share this party. Bettijo and I threw a big Boy-or-Girl? Reveal Bash back in November when Bettijo had her ultrasound to find out what her baby was going to be. We’ve been keeping things under wraps for a while because the amazing Amy Atlas featured our party on her blog yesterday! (You can see her write up here). We are so excited about the feature and wanted to share a few more of the party details with you all.

These “gender reveal” parties are starting to become popular, but no one in our neck of the woods has really heard of them. Of course we love any excuse for a party, but also since early on in Bettijo’s pregnancy, her husband was badly injured (don’t worry — he’s all better now), his accident made it necessary for Bettijo to tell her family and friends that she was pregnant without any big, fun surprise. Since Bettijo felt a bit cheated having to reveal her pregnancy early, she decided we simply must throw a party to reveal the baby’s sex.

We went with a gender-neutral color scheme of yellow and gray. Bettijo designed the invitations to be simple and modern and used only gray and white. I love the circle punch in the upper-right corner — such a clean way to dress up the card and all you need is a corner rounder and 1-inch circle punch. Bettijo says the circle cutout was inspired by a growing mama’s baby belly.

If you want to make this invitation, we do offer printable templates customized with your party details in our Supermom Co-op.

We used pregnancy cravings as the theme for our dessert table featuring something sweet, sour, salty, crunchy and chewy. (If I’m being completely honest here, this pregnancy has definitely altered Bettijo’s taste buds! I think she’s been through each one of these cravings — and sometimes on the same day! What a trooper she is!)

We served all her favorite cravings: crunchy tortilla chips with her favorite ranch dip; chewy chocolate-dipped marshmallows; salty freshly-popped popcorn; sour pickle chunks; and sweet chocolate-dipped oreos.

These marshmallow pops on a stick not only add color, they also were a favorite treat among the kids at the party. (After all, doesn’t everything taste better on a stick?) I used fabric tape, a new favorite discovery of mine, to embellish the stick top.

My favorite detail of the whole party was the fabric scrap popcorn box embellishment. It is so simple and unexpected, yet it was the perfect touch to coordinate with the draped fabric scrap swag on the table.

To make the popcorn box fabric detail, we punched a hole in one of the scallops then looped a short piece of fabric through the hole. We also printed extra salty signs on adhesive paper to affix to the front of each box.

Pickles for dessert? Absolutely! Bettijo requested whole Claussen pickles, as this baby has distinctive tastes! It took me a few days to come up with a buffet solution that would accommodate such a … different?… dessert. (Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about serving ice cream with it!) In the end, along with the popcorn boxes, the pickles are also my favorite detail. The tiny silver appetizer forks are just adorable and nearly steal the show!

Chocolate-covered Oreos are beautiful, and with a little yellow chocolate drizzle, they were the perfect sweet to round out the dessert table.

To create the Ultrasound Garland that dressed up the fireplace, Bettijo used her beloved large circle cutter to make a couple sizes of yellow circles out of construction paper. She then sewed them all together with a long, straight stitch on the sewing machine. She layered over a piece of cotton rope and used mini wooden clothespins to clip up various ultrasound photos.

No one at the party actually knew the gender, Bettijo and her husband found out with everyone else when they opened the box and saw the colored balloons. We accomplished this by giving Bettijo’s ultrasound tech a note card and envelope. Bettijo asked the technician not to tell her the gender of the baby, but instead to wait until she left the room and to write the gender on paper and to seal it in an envelope.

I took the envelope to the party store along with a big white box and explained to the sales clerk that we wanted her to look inside the envelope and if the card said, “Boy” to fill the box with blue helium-filled balloons, and pink for “Girl.” Bettijo wanted me to get the balloons just in case there was any kind of slip-up, then I would be the only one that knew the secret, and it wouldn’t spoil Bettijo’s “surprise” moment at the party.

We had guests suggest possible boy and girl names, and Bettijo and her husband took turns reading them out loud to the group just before the big balloon reveal. Some of the suggestions were pretty humorous and this game actually ended up being a highlight for the party.

Each guest was asked to cast a vote on whether they thought it would be a boy or girl, and then they put on a mini flair button that showed their vote. Bettijo designed the buttons, and I love the simple gender-specific person! You can purchase buttons for your own party in our Supermom Co-op.

We took photos of “Team Boy” and “Team Girl” before the balloon reveal. Since Bettijo already has two daughters, nearly everyone was with Bettijo in rooting for a boy. Only a handful of people, Bettijo’s husband included, were wearing “girl” buttons, but in the end, they were right.

Here is printable template of the labels we used at the party.

Post by Aimee and Bettijo : www.supermommoments.com