Eco-friendly baby shower

by Rachel
(Baltimore, MD, USA)

HappyGreenBabies.com

This past weekend a few friends helped me to plan an eco-friendly baby shower at my house. It has become too common for social gatherings to create piles and piles of waste. We have become accustomed to throw-away dishes, silverware, gift wrappings etc. While clean-up may not be as easy as getting out the trash bag, you are doing a good deed to mother nature when you use reusable items instead of disposable.

To start I had a friend who is a graphic designer, design and e-mail me a PDF version of the shower invitation. I then sent the PDF out by email to the guests to avoid paper waste and fuel consumption in the mailing process. The guests still received a customized invitation, and could print it out if they wanted to have a copy for themselves. In the e-mail sent out with the attached PDF I asked the guests to please wrap their gift creatively, without the use of new gift wrapping materials (this was actually done for me at my shower).

Next my friends and I decided that for the party we would use all of my dish-ware and silverware and if we needed extra they would bring some from their houses. We also planned to have a vegetarian menu for our 10:30 brunch/lunch food. The menu consisted of Coffee, Tea and Mimosas for drinks. For food we served organic fruit salad with fresh mint, panini with tomato mozzarella and basil, panini with raspberry jam, mozzarella and brown sugar, asparagus with parmesan cheese, and biscotti with rasberries and chocolate dipping sauce. For desert I made an organic chocolate cake, with icing colored by using raspberry and blueberry juices.

Choosing a vegetarian menu is one way to reduce our party’s carbon footprint. In general animal farming, meat processing and shipping wastes a large amount of resources. We successful served a vegetarian menu that the guests thoroughly enjoyed, and I would be willing to bet that many of them didn’t even notice that meat was missing!

It turned out that for dishing out the food, I had plenty of dish-ware, silverware, mugs and cups that we could use and my friends helping me throw the party did not need to bring any extras. It actually worked out that, since I had a party at my house the weekend before that I was also planning to use my own dishes, I stopped by goodwill and bought a nice set of 6 more dinner, salad plates, and a platter for $10. I am now set for entertaining a larger group at my house without needing to purchase paper plates, etc.

For decorations I cut fresh flowers from my yard, bought one potted chrysanthemums plant (which was also the prize for the game we played), and used fresh cut flowers that I took from a wedding shower party that I attended the afternoon before (which were going to be thrown-away).

During our meal we played one (non-cheesy) eco-friendly game. I used 10 lunch-sized bags (some paper some reusable) each with a letter on them spelling out the words B-A-B-Y S-H-O-W-E-R. Each bag had a baby item in it that began with the letter on the bag. Several of the items were organic, one handmade, and all were usable for the
mother-to-be. The guests had to guess what was in each bag without looking inside the bag and write down their guesses. At the end of the game the mother-to-be opened up all of the bags to reveal what was inside, and as a bonus got to keep all 10 items. The winner received the chrysanthemums plant that I bought.

When it came time to open gifts many people used reusable baskets to display their gifts. Although some people did wrap their gifts, the overall waste was minimal. In my effort to try to convince my friend (mom-to-be) to use cloth diapers, I gave her g-diapers as a gift. What I think it great about the g-diapers it that they can be used with a flushable insert or a new cloth insert, so a mom that is on the fence about using cloth diapers has an option to go both ways, without purchasing cloth diapers only to be put on the shelf and never used. Some of the other items she received as gift included burts bees oil and shampoo, and seventh generation wipes and diapers.

Overall, the shower was a great success and my clean-up time was quite minimal. I am sure everyone enjoyed themselves and without even knowing it, took part in a very eco-friendly party!

I hope to pass on my eco-party planning ideas to others and I plan to use them for all parties at my house in the future!

Find me on twitter: @GreenBabiesBlog

Erika's Reply
Rachel, Thanks for sharing these details about your eco friendly baby shower! I love the ideas, especially bringing flowers and plants from your yard as decorations and prizes.