Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

These cakes look so good I can almost taste them! After weeding through hundreds of designs, the duck themed cakes shown below are some of my favorites!  Made with a variety of decorating techniques and multiple levels of difficulty, you’re sure to find one to use at your next duck-themed baby shower.  Photo credit to www.flickr.com.

The first cake shown in this collage is a 3D creation shared by TimScott.  The cake was made by baking 2 duck-shaped cakes, standing them up and sticking them together with icing.  The yellow “fuzz” was made with a decorator tip and yellow buttercreme.  His eyes are made of candy and his beak is orange fondant.  The cutest part of this cake is the way it was displayed.  The decorator used a silver galvanized tub with a blue base, and then scattered marshmallows throughout the tub to simulate bubbles.  I would feel confident recreating this cake, although the beak may get a bit tricky (fondant can be hard to work with) so I would just frost it with buttercreme.  The “mama and babies” tiered design on the right is a fun combination of cake and cupcakes.  Each cupcake has a simple layer of white icing with a miniature rubber duck favor on top.  The mama duck is a single layer cake, covered in fondant with a cupcake head.  Although this particular cake is for a birthday, it would be perfect for a baby shower also!  This cake can be found at Jellycakes flickr site.  The final cake pictured above is a masterpiece of decorating.  It is covered in smooth fondant with intricate edible designs including a clothesline, washtub, and the duck on top!  The stunning and finely detailed cake was displayed by rsvpcakes and it is so beautiful I would hate to cut into it!

The cute design above left was crafted from two round cakes and a pair of sugar cookies for the webbed feet.  Bit-O-Me explains how to create this cake on her blog.  The cake on the right is another awesome mother and baby design, with a pond base and marshy background.  The mama is a single round cake, covered and fondant with a cupcake head and fondant details.  The babies are smaller cupcakes with molded fondant details, but if I were to reproduce this cake I would simply use toy ducks for the babies.  This flickr cake can be found at teri_caza’s page.

The last cake I picked to display is my most favorite!  It is also one that I think could easily be reproduced for your ducky baby shower.  The simple round cake is covered in buttercreme, then accented with green grass at the bottom.  The top was designed with a circular layer of blue fondant, but you could easily ice the “pond” with blue buttercreme instead.  The fishing pole is a simple dowel poked into the cake and wrapped with a piece of string.  The hook is colored icing and the top is finished with four rubber ducks.  This adorable creation is displayed by Leeroy Rokkenrohl.

From personalized baby blankets to bathtub toys and books, ducks can decorate not only your shower but also your gift!  If the baby has already been born, consider getting him or her a personalized ducky blanket.  The soft fabric is great for snuggling and your new mom will love baby’s name embroidered on the front.

Some of our gift baskets include tear-free shampoo and bubble bath along with duck tub toys, a ducky hooded towel and soothing baby lotion.  The duck-themed gift box pictured in the center is too cute to wrap so this item can do double duty as a gift and a shower centerpiece!  Other great duck or bath-related gifts include a baby tub (I loved mine – it fit over my kitchen sink), bibs, clothes (new moms can never have enough onesies or sleepers) and duck toys.  There are hundreds of duck books to stimulate baby’s mind, two of my kids’ favorites are “Duck Soup” and “Duck at the Door”.  The books can be combined into a larger gift box or given separately.

If you’d like to get the baby something he can use later, there are some cute duck-themed raincoats, galoshes and hats.  Nothing is more adorable than a toddler, decked out in his ducky rain gear, splashing through the springtime puddles!

You can do so many things with little yellow ducks that decorating for your baby shower will be a snap!  You can start with duck-themed tableware and use matching crepe paper or balloons.  If you prefer, just purchase a ducky tablecloth and highlight with blue or yellow tableware.  One of our customers suggested ordering a bouquet of blue helium balloons with a single duck shaped balloon in the center.  I’ve also seen this done in centerpiece fashion with blue bouncy balls (or blue glass beads as shown in the photo) and rubber duckies “swimming along”.

Rubber duckies are inexpensive, so use them generously throughout your shower.  They look cute scattered throughout your food table (especially with a blue tablecloth), they make great place card holders and they are perfect for game pieces.  You can even create a miniature duck pond and help your guests relive their childhood!

The yellow duck bookmarks pictured here can not only be used to mark the page in your favorite novel, I like them for keeping my son’s school papers together.  Adhere a magnet to the back of the duck and they are a fun way to hang notes on the refrigerator!

Many people associate yellow ducks with babies – probably because they are both so cute and cuddly!  Because of all the adorable duck-themed baby items available, it is very easy to plan a duck baby shower.  You can use a number of phrases on your invitations including rubber ducky, lucky duck, ducky duck, just ducky or even rub-a-dub-dub (for more of a bathtime theme).  Decorate in yellow – of course – and add splashes of blue to simulate water.  Decorate the guest book table with this unique ducky gift cake that includes a giant rubber duck, hooded bath towel, sleep gown, hat, booties, washcloth, brush and comb.

We also have a great selection of duck-themed shower favors to decorate your tables or send guests home with a treat.    There are photo frames, candles, bookmarks, personalized candy jars or even mint tins with a cute rubber duck announcing the shower date.  Many hosts will send out these mint tins along with their invitations so the guests have a tasty reminder of the upcoming celebration!

I had a lot of fun searching for my favorite barnyard baby shower cakes at Flickr.com.  The animals are so cute and the decorating is flawless!  Whether you order a cake or use one of these cakes for inspiration to create your own design, it will be a great addition to your farm-themed baby shower.

The first cake pictured is a creation by abbymoakler.  She used baby shower bedding as her inspiration, and copied the squares in fondant.  The two layer cake is also covered in fondant and and the bow on top of the cake is also colored fondant.  If you aren’t as talented as this cake artist, you could use farm animal toys in place of the edible animals.  The second cake seems to be something that I could re-create.  The single layer cake is covered with buttercreme frosting, then topped with a graham-cracker barn, pathway made of crushed graham crackers and hand crafted edible animals (I would have to use the toy animals instead!).  This colorful and cute design was made by sarahscakes.

The adorable cupcakes shown above were created by Angelina Cupcake.  The green grass background was created by piping buttercreme frosting over the cupcakes.  They were then topped with a fondant animal heads.  These cupcakes would be perfect to scatter around your barnyard-themed banquet table.

The design on the left uses a combination of cake and cupcakes, fondant and buttercreme decorating.  The cake part sits atop a 3-tier pedestal and is covered with ornate piping on a light green buttercreme base.  The fondant animals are spectacular!  The cupcakes on the lower two tiers alternate with the same light green frosting and a milk chocolate frosting.  They also have finely crafted details, down to the blue butterfly on the pig cupcake.  This excellent display of edible art comes from jdesmeules.  The cake on the right would work perfectly for a barnyard themed shower or a little lamb baby shower.  The three tiers are alternately covered with white and pink fondant, then decorated with relatively simple cutout decorations and whipped cream sheep.  Once again, the design was inspired by baby bedding.  The cake could be easily transformed for a boy or gender-neutral shower, simply substitute the pink accents with blue, green or yellow.  This design was created by Lecake.

Purchase a memorable favor to include with your Barnyard Baby Shower!  We offer a number of adorable baby shower favors like the blue lamb photo holder pictured.  The lamb (which also comes in pink) can be put to good use at your guests’ homes by keeping a recipe in place, holding important notecards or displaying cute photos like the one shown here.  The same lamb figurine is used on bookmarks, keychains and candles to form a complete collection.

You can use our baby shower favors in a number of ways – give them as a prize for winning a shower game, hand them out as thank-you gifts for attending the shower, set them out as decorations and make sure guests know they can take one home or give them to your mother-to-be to use as tokens when guests come to visit the new baby!  Baby themed photo frames work especially well for this purpose, the new mother can add a picture of her new bundle of joy and send each visitor home with a great memory of their visit.

If you are tired of the same baby shower games that you’ve played a hundred times, try a few of these games that focus on your barnyard theme:

Baby Animal Name Game

Prior to the shower, look up the proper names of farm animals and their offspring.  Create a list of each, and have your guests match the mother to the baby.  For example, a mother horse is called a mare and the baby horse is a foal.  More mothers and babies are listed below:

(Cattle)                      Cow                   Calf

(Goose)                     Goose               Gosling

(Duck)                       Duck                  Duckling

(Chicken)                 Hen                    Chick

(Goat)                        Doe                    Kid

(Pig)                           Sow                    Piglet

(Sheep)                     Ewe                    Lamb

(Cat)                          Queen                Kitten

Old MacDonald Memory Game

Another fun shower game tests your guests’ memories!  With everyone gathered in a circle, start to the right of the mother-to-be.  Have this guest say the phrase “(Mother-to-be) has a farm and on her farm she has a (list animal)”  For example, if Mary were the mother to be, your guest should say, “Mother Mary has a farm and on her farm she has a goat.”  The next guest repeats the phrase and adds another animal.  This continues around the circle and gets increasingly difficult as each guest has to remember the list of animals and come up with a new animal to add!  You may want to write down the list of animals to make sure the guests are getting them right!  The game can continue until either someone gets the list wrong, or until there is 1 guest left who can recite the entire list of animals.

Barnyard Babies Hunt

Get your guests out of their seats with a farm animal hunt – similar to an Easter egg hunt.  Purchase a set of farm animal babies like the ones pictured above (photo courtesy of growingtreetoys.com).  Hide the animals around your shower venue and offer prizes for recovering each toy.

When planning your Barnyard Baby Shower don’t forget some fun decorations!  Farm babies are the cutest animals, and they make adorable decorations.  You can find tablecloths, plates, cups, napkins, balloons and streamers and in primary colors or a pastel color scheme.  If there’s one animal that you want to focus on, you can also find baby lamb, baby pig and baby cow decorations.

To bring even more authenticity to your shower you can purchase hay bales or corn stalks (depending on the season) from your local nursery, garden center or farmer’s market.  Use the bales for seating or as a gift collection center, just be aware of the extra cleanup involved (if these items will be used indoors).  Picnic-themed items work well with this type of baby shower – checkerboard tablecloths and summer foods (corn on the cob, potato salad or a cool ice cream dessert) are a great addition!

Decorate your gift table with the awesome barnyard friends diaper cake shown here.  With 35 diapers and 13 accessory items, this cake is a great display piece and a useful gift for the new mom!  Scatter beanie babies or stuffed farm animals around the remaining guest tables.

Some fun final touches for the shower include a big sign welcoming everyone to “(mommy-to-be)’s Farm”.  Surround the sign with animal-themed helium balloons and have country music playing in the background.  Find themed gift wrap and decorate the guest of honor’s chair with wrapping paper, ribbon and bows.

If your new mom grew up on a farm, lives on a farm, or just wishes she was back on the farm, consider throwing her a Barnyard Baby Shower.  This fun theme is perfect for a summer shower where you can have an old-fashioned outdoor hoedown complete with haybales and barbecue!

Growing up in a rural community, I’m actually surprised that I never attended a Farm Animal Themed Shower.  Of course, when I was growing up there weren’t a lot of themed showers at all – how boring.  I would love to host or attend a farm-themed shower now, especially with all the adorable invitations and baby farm animal decorations that are available!

When choosing a baby shower theme, it’s important to go with a basic color scheme as well.  Primary colors work best for a barynard baby shower, but there are also some cute pastel pigs and lambs that will fit right into the farm.  If you go with primary colors, use checkerboard tablecloths and make a big red barn for your guests to deposit their gifts.  Have a “baby animal hunt” (similar to an Easter Egg hunt, but hide plastic animals instead of plastic eggs) and dance to the chicken dance for prizes!

Choosing food for your barnyard baby shower will be loads of fun too – make pigs in a blanket, chicken wings and milkshakes.  Make a black and white cake to resemble a cow, put together round cakes and pink cupcakes to recreate a pig, or go all out like the cake shown below!

photo courtesy of cakewrecks.blogspot.com

When heading out for an evening without the kids, make sure that your babysitter has a list of “Do’s and Don’ts” while you are out.  Be sure to include emergency information as well as nightly routines and special notes.  The list below is a good guide:

1)  Emergency Information – Include your cell number, a neighbor or close friend’s number and the number for Poison Control (800-222-1222).  Write down specific directions for getting to your house in case the sitter has to call 911.

2)  Escape Route and Emergency Items – Walk your sitter around the house and show him or her all entrances and exits.  Make sure they know where the fire extinguisher, first aid kit and flashlights are located.

3)  Medicine Cabinet – Explain any medication that your children are taking (or allowed to take – such as cough medicine or aspirin).

4)  Food and Drink List – I’m a pretty lenient parent so when I have a sitter there are no food or beverage restrictions.   However, you may not want your child to have caffeine or chocolate before bedtime.  If snacks are allowed, show your sitter where they are and establish a limit.

5)  Your Child’s Routine – The younger your child is, the more they will benefit from sticking to their normal routine.  If your infant always has a bath at 7:30, followed by a bottle and story, lay out the necessary bath items and your baby’s favorite book.  If your toddler goes to bed with his favorite blankie every night, make sure he knows where it is before you leave the house.  It’s amazing how one break from their routine can cause a major meltdown!

6)  Expectations for your Sitter – If you want the house to look as it did when you left, make sure the babysitter knows you expect them to pick up after the kids.  I don’t think this is too much to ask, especially if the kids will be in bed long before you arrive home.  Let your sitter know what time you will be home, and call them if this changes.  If your child wants to call to tell you good night, tell the sitter whether this is allowed.  I allow my babysitters to eat or drink anything they find in the house, but you may want to set out specific snacks.

If you use more than 1 sitter or your expectations change from one evening to the next, you may want to pick up a Babysitter Notepad like the one shown above.  They can be found at most discount stores or online (the item pictured can be purchased at amazon.com).