My baby sister is having a baby girl of her own this February. To say I am excited is an understatement. I am overwhelmingly, astoundingly thrilled to another girl to our bunch. And a baby I didn’t have to carry for ten months? Even better.

I mean, look at her. GLOWING WITH BEAUTY AND LIFE.

She lives four hours away, which is a somewhat depressing distance. I make it up by showering her with gifts that my bank account can hardly keep up with. Worth it, though. It is my love language to spoil.

We held the shower at my older sister’s large, beautiful house. This was challenging because it meant several spaces to decorate for it to feel complete.

The theme was a storybook fairy tale, and it took several projects to make it come to life. I find that the more complex the party theme, the more complex the narrative we must weave into the decor.

And if this seems a rather intense way to think about party planning, imagine being in my brain.

Let’s start with the invitations. I cannot do them justice because they were assembled like a small book. Here is a sample of the illustrations I did for it.

I loved them second best from any invitation I’ve ever done. These were hand-stitched together and were four, two-sided pages altogether. I wanted it to appear like a little storybook. I made 54 in total. The illustrations, because there were so many, ultimately took me the longest amount of time. This was second to printing them all myself and cutting them to size. The hand-stitching was the quickest part of the process, surprisingly.

The first is the table where we held the food. We did a pasta bar and catered most of the pasta and sauces. It was all very yummy. I used a decorative table rod for above the dining table to make this a magical space. I know I went a little crazy on this one, but I hand-sewed two Waldorf-style fairy dolls.

I used public domain images for the inside of the frames, as well as framing several prints from her invitations and some extra little drawings I did. The frames are vintage, and I use them in my house normally. I like to buy decor that can be used again and again. This is one of the reasons I am such a fan of this gold, tabletop bar. Amazon and Anthropologie sell versions, but I found this one on a website called Antique Farmhouse. I used greenery garlands I found at Hobby Lobby with some branches and extra ferns added in. I added twinkle lights for extra magic.

I found the candle holder at Goodwill for $6 and felt like a treasure hunter who scored a trove of gold. Nothing compares to that feeling. I handpainted twenty tapered candles with blue acrylic paint. Yes, we lit them all. They were supposed to be smokeless and dripless, but they very much dripped. I will not recommend them because of that. But they were beautiful while they lasted like most precious things are.

To help with the storybook theme, I brought some of my vintage-looking books out and I bought a few random books to alter. I’ll share those, as well, but I do think you need an explanation of these extraordinary flowers.

The flower arrangements were all done by hand the day before. We used a variety of containers that we already owned, and we are QUITE PROUD of ourselves. We constantly congratulated each other and ourselves to the point that we were boring people with our flower conversations. But they were stunning! My sister went to the DIY Flower Market in Orlando and hand-selected 90% of the flowers we used. We added in some others we found at Publix.

Look at us. Basically florists. I think this means it is time for us to open a flower shop/book shop/coffee shop/children’s store we all have the feminine urge to create.

I mean, I am dying all over the images of them. Imagine them in real life.

Our very good friend’s mom had a butterfly hole puncher I used on the books to create those butterfly books. The little, punched-out butterflies were everywhere. On walls, on food, on flowers. Just everywhere we could we could fathom. I kept finding them on my clothes and shoes. It was delightful.

The cake table held most obviously the cake, but it also had flowers, a storybook and can we talk about that Cinderella shoe? I found it when I made the mood board for the shower. It’s a makeup brush holder, but I had my fingers crossed it would work with florals. It indeed did. It was the star of the show, honestly.

I found the butterflies for the cake at Hobby Lobby and I sketched that little Cinderella illustration to bring it all together.

There is, of course, the light. I think most people loved it, although my brother-in-law loathed it from the second I had it hung. I felt like it added a touch of whimsy that was perfectly charming.

Here is everything else.