baby shower favors  

First off don't do potpurri. Sorry but i wouldn't like that if i went to your baby shower. Check out partycity.com. It doesn't matter if you live near one you can get ideas of what kind of favors people like. There are suckers that are blue are pink and say even boy are girl. There are toy pacifiers. There are different things. And ideas on party games. You can even google some stuff like this.

With babies being "the start of life," small, easy to care for plants are a nice favor... like an african violet, for example, which you could buy with pink or blue-ish flowers, if you know the gender of the baby. Another way to work this theme is to buy some inexpensive ceramic pots at a dollar store and make little gift bags with the pot and a packet of seeds (like forget me nots). If you would like to give candy, pick up some plastic baby bottles, again at the dollar store or somewhere similarly inexpensive, clean them well and fill them with color-coordinated candies, tie on a matching ribbon and you're done. Another fun filler for baby bottles is instant coffee (or instant hot cocoa or loose tea with a tea ball as a tie-on). The idea being, of course, that you don't get a whole lot of sleep with a new baby so caffeine is not a bad gift :) Other favors that aren't terribly hard to coordinate to a theme would be picture frames, photo albums, scented candles, or, in keeping with "baby", a gift bag containing baby powder and a Dove body wash (since Dove unscented soap is commonly recommended for baby skin). Most adults I know still love the scent of baby powder :)

i think it would help if you think of a "theme" for the party. for example, if you like teddy bears, you can give out little teddy bears as party favors. and ask your guests to bring their favorite teddy bears and give a prize to the biggest teddy bear. and you can play a teddy bear trivia game. whoever wins gets a teddy bear.

I may be too late to share my comments on this, hopefully not...

Here are a few that are cheap and fun...

Buy a pack of premie diapers, and open each one, and tape it up as you were gonna put it on a baby... get colored themed tissue paper, and line the bottom of each on, and drop in sugar baby candy, attach a note thanking each guest.

buy pre-made cinnamon rolls, bake, then wrap up in cellophane, attach a ribbon and note saying thanks for attending, love the bun in the oven.

These are not only pretty cheap and easy, they are fun, and rememberable.

I have seen some really cute ones. One of my favorites is seeds for mixed spring flowers in a small plain white envelope with a note about watching things bloom from the lil sprout. My sister-in-law gave small votive candles with a note that said "Here's a candle for you to light, once the stork has made his flight. With the flicker of the flame, say a prayer in baby _____'s name." I have also seen little pacifier mints made out of white lifesavers (wintergreen flavored) with a jelly bean (you can use whatever colors you want) and icing that hardens (like royal icing you can buy it in various colors in tubes at the grocery store or make it from powdered sugar, milk and food coloring). You use two lifesavers per pacifire mint and use the icing like glue to attatch one lifesaver standing up to the lifesaverthat is resting on the tabletop (it will nestle into the hole). Once the icing dries turn it over and attach the jelly bean to the other side of the hole for the nipple end of the pacifier.