Simple DIY Spring Baby Shower Decorations

Last week I shared my five tips to hosting the best baby shower and today today I’m continuing the baby shower series with a simple DIY baby shower decoration idea that goes perfect with my vintage spring shower theme.

how to make a baby cake

Remember those white paper doilies that I picked up at Safeway? Well, they’re no longer white. I didn’t feel like spending money to buy doilies in all of my colors so I just dyed them myself using water and food coloring. It’s seriously so easy to do and since you are doing the dyeing yourself, you can choose the colors that match your theme.

And how cute would these be wrapped around a glass of this strawberry mocktail – the perfect baby shower drink!

Now let’s talk about how I got those gorgeous colors.

First, you’ll need to gather your supplies. For this project, you must have paper doilies, water, food coloring, and trays or bowls to do the actual dyeing. To make your life much easier, I also recommend having parchment paper, kitchen tweezers or tongs, and a blow dryer. You can skip out on these items but it will take you longer and you’ll likely end up with food coloring all over your doilies, kitchen counter, and hands.

Once you’ve gathered your supplies, the fun begins. Pour some water into one of your bowls and add food coloring. I can’t tell you exactly how much water or food coloring to add because it depends on the color you want. Just play around with it until you get it right. If it helps, I used about a 1/2 cup of water and 25 drops of food coloring, give or take five drops. You want to make sure there is enough food coloring to really saturate the water with color so that color gets into your doilies. Once you think the color is right, dip a doily into it and coat. Once you’ve coated the entire doily in color, remove from the water with the kitchen tweezers and lightly shake out, emphasis on lightly. I ended up with a number of doilies with large holes from shaking too hard. Once you’ve removed some of the excess liquid, lay the doily down onto a piece of parchment paper.

Dry the doily using the blow dryer on high heat. And repeat. If you’d prefer you can dye all of your doilies and blow dry once all of the doilies are colored. I dried mine individually because the blow dryer kept blowing the other doilies all over the place. I was doing this during K’s naptime and didn’t have time for chasing doilies.

Once you’re done drying all of the doilies, you’re done. Feel free to step back and admire your handiwork. I know I did.

This is my kind of craft because it’s quick, easy, and a great way to save money on custom baby shower decorations. And the possibilities of ways to use these are endless. Here are just a few of the ways that I incorporated them into my spring shower.

I added a little white lace, some flowers, and spring accessories to make the doilies really come alive.