Tis the season for milestone events like babies and weddings, but who says you have to spend a fortune on run-of-the-mill shower decorations, party favors, and gifts? With a little bit of creativity, you can create personalized, inexpensive gifts and decor that your friend or loved one will cherish for years.

Here's an example of a Baby Shower for a Boy!

As with any good design, we started our display with the very basics: color scheme, graphics, and text. We chose two coordinating colors (Sky Blue and Green Tea) and a neutral color (Bright White), then picked out our embellishments—Elephant (size 5” and 12”; item #4482105 and 4482112) and Face Card Heart (size 2”; item #4485002).

MyDesign was the next step—and a huge help in creating an expression that was meaningful for our shower recipient. We created a 2” custom expression—Welcome Baby Boy Olsen—in a playful, perfect-for-a-baby-shower font called Jot.

At our wall, we created the ideal focal point—a mommy/ baby pair—using two differently sized Elephants (one mirrored, so they face each other), three hearts (grouping items into threes, or any odd number, is a popular technique), and our custom expression. Repetition is essential in design, so we also placed our 2” Elephant embellishment on our favor boxes.

To round out this darling display, we purchased a metal tin (you can find similar gift items for a steal at Walmart or Target!) and decked it out with a series of alphabet letters in a boyish font called Princetown (2” Sky Blue ACEGIK; 2” Green Tea custom BDFHJL; 5” Sky Blue B). We embellished the tin lid with a 9” Hollow Circle embellishment—once again, Sky Blue—and repeated our primary font, Jot, in a custom “is for baby” expression.

The last item on the list was the memory-keeping keepsake for mom. We found a white photo album and turned it into a pretty baby book with two embellishments: a Sky Blue B (2.5” B in Jot) overlaying a Green Tea Round Medallion (size 3”; item #4476803). A touch of ribbon, a plush teddy bear, some chocolate candies (of course!), and a few balloons were the perfect final accents needed to finish off the design with style.

That’s it! Custom décor for any shower. Now that you’ve got your next party idea in the bag, let the oohs and ahs begin!