A Delicious Baby Shower Centerpiece Idea

Below are easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions with pictures of how to make an edible fruit bouquet.

This fresh fruit bouquet is a wonderful baby shower centerpiece because it is also a tasty addition to your baby shower food refreshments. Instead of making a fruit salad, make a fruit flower bouquet! It is a fresh, striking and unique baby shower centerpiece idea.

***** Instructions *****Depending on the size of bouquet that you wish to make, you will need fresh pineapple, strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes, and parsely. For the bouquet shown here, I used 1 large pineapple, 2 pounds of strawberries, 1 cantaloupe, 50 grapes and a handful of parsley.

You will also need a few other items to make this edible fruit bouquet: a flower cookie cutter, a knife, a melon baller, kitchen scissors, bamboo skewers, a cutting board, a vase, and some floral foam or playdough (the floral foam is easier to work with, but the playdough works just fine)

Step 1. Using your knife, cut up your pineapple into 1/2 inch thick slices. (I used 5 slices total for this bouquet, but you can use more or less).

Step 2. Using the cookie cutter, press each slice of pineapple and cut out a flower of pineapple.

 

Step 3. Using the melon baller, scoop out one ball of cantaloupe for every 2 pineapple flowers. Cut the cantaloupe ball in half and lay the flat side of one half against one pineapple flower.

 

Step 4. Now take each pineapple flower and stick a bamboo skewer through the center. Make sure your skewer pokes through the pineapple about 1/2 inch. Now stick that part of the skewer onto a cantaloupe ball, but don’t let the skewer stick out the other end of the cantaloupe ball. Do this for each pineapple flower that you have.

Step 5. Wash your strawberries (you can remove the strawberry leaves if you want). Then take each strawberry and stick a bamboo skewer into the top of it, but don’t let the skewer poke out the other side.

Step 6. Take a bamboo skewer and stick it through about 6-7 grapes. When you stick one grape on, slide it down to make room for the next one. Repeat this until your last grape. Make sure that the skewer doesn’t stick out of the last grape (the one on top). Then slide each grape up the skewer until they touch the grape just above it. I made 7 of these grape skewers for this fruit bouquet.

Step 7. Put your floral foam or playdough into your vase.  I used a baby elephant vase here, but you can use a flower vase, a basket or something else. I do recommend using an opaque vase so the skewers & playdough are not visible through the vase. I used playdough for this fruit bouquet.

Step 8. Now you should have all of your fruit on skewers. Place each skewer into the playdough at various angles. You will want to create a spherical shape to the bouquet, so place the outermost skewers on a large angle and make them shorter than the center skewers. I had to break a few inches off some of the skewers to get them to the right height (I used kitchen scissors to help me break the skewers). This step is the most time consuming because you want the bouquet to look perfect. If you have trouble, just start putting in skewers into the playdough. Then adjust each one to look how you want it. The key to this step is to adjust your skewer lengths. Don’t be afraid to break a good part of the skewer off (if you break too much off, you can always use a new skewer – I had a LOT of extra skewers at the end). Also, the playdough tends to get quite full of skewers, so if you place a skewer in and it runs into another skewer, twist it a little bit until it slides past the other skewer. Another key to making your fruit bouquet look AWESOME is to have plenty of fruit. Having too few fruit skewers makes your fruit bouquet look bare and skimpy.

By now, your fruit bouquet centerpiece will look something like this:

You could stop at this point and have a cute fruit bouquet, but I recommend you move on to Step 9.

Step 9. Once all your fruit skewers are placed, place some twigs of parsley in-between the skewers. This fills in the bouquet, hides the skewers and makes it look more like a flower bouquet.

Tip: You may have to remove a skewer and drop in the parsley from the top. This will give you a little more room to work with. After your parsley is in place, replace any skewers that you may have removed.

Once you have the parsley in place, YOU ARE DONE! You have a delicious and unique baby shower centerpiece. It will serve as a beautiful baby shower centerpiece and your guests will love the taste of this fresh edible fruit bouquet.

 

Place this fruit bouquet baby shower centerpiece on your food table or somewhere prominent. When you serve the refreshments, you could have the guests just pull the fruit off of the skewers, rather than pulling the whole skewer out. That way, the parsely won’t be falling out all over.

 

Baby showers are a right of passage in pregnancy. They can be a great amount of fun. The problem is that so many people have started to believe that a baby shower needs to cost a pretty penny. The truth is that baby showers are designed to celebrate the pregnant mother-to-be and her baby. It’s a gathering of friends and family to show support. Here are some ideas to have a great shower – without breaking the bank!

Reuse Decorations
If you happen to have some decorations saved from another shower, reuse them! Or pull out some strings of Christmas lights and hang them around the party room – they spice up any occasion. You can also use baby items as decorations, either yours or some from friends. Think kid books, baby bath lotions, stuffed animals, etc. These small things can really help set the tone and don’t have to be overpowering to be effective.

Eat off plates.
I know it sounds crazy, but consider using your real plates instead of disposable plates. If you have a set of nice dishes, pull those out. If the thought of doing dishes really turns you off consider budget paper plates. That would be colored paper plates that don’t have specific baby shower themes. You can find these at the grocery, discount party stores and even the dollar store.

Buy in bulk.
For food consider going to your local bulk food store. Here you can get a large selection for less. Think a huge bag of veggies and dip for appetizers. Many also have bags of candy or nuts to set out for munchies. My personal favorite is in the freezer aisle: frozen mini cream puffs and eclairs. Either way buying in bulk is likely to save you money.

Bake the cake!
Baking a cake doesn’t have to be difficult. You can simply bake a long sheet cake in your own oven. Once it’s frosted you can add some pre-made designed pieces of candy (like you’d purchase for a kid’s birthday) or go for a simple style. For simple yet elegant, you can also make cupcakes. A nice cupcake sprinkled with colored sugar is very attractive. You can even arrange these in decorative format, like spelling out the word baby in cupcakes as a center piece.

Guest Gifts for Party Games
It’s nice to give small gifts to the winners of baby shower games. These don’t have to break the budget at all. Consider getting them at the dollar store. Even when you purchase gift bags and tissue, you’re only spending $7 plus tax. You can even skip the gift bags and simply use the tissue paper and some old string or ribbon from your home. Dollar stores typically have some candles, nice bath stuff or picture frames.

Baby gifts on a budget.
If you’d like to give the mother-to-be something beyond the baby shower, which is a present in and of itself, consider inexpensive options. Coupons for babysitting, a gift basket of baby goodies from the dollar store, the promise of a meal after the baby arrives – these are all good ideas for budget baby shower gifts.

Save money on the invitations.
Consider using a service like Evite to send electronic invitations to your guests who have email. This saves on postage as well as the actual invitation an time. It’s also a handy way to manage your guest list. What if someone doesn’t have email? Drop them a nice note in the mail with a printed version of the online invitation and a note to call in their RSVP