She'd go hug her hellos, stick the label on each guest's back, and explained the rules (guess who you are by asking people only yes or no questions). This worked out wonderfully because it gave MOH-Ho brief one-on-one time with each individual as soon as they came in, and the labels ensured she would not miss a soul. It also gave guests an easy topic to mingle with. There were a lot of 'ooo, you've got a good one!' and/or 'do you know who you are yet?' going around even among those meeting for the first time.
White chocolate raspberry almond M&M's was the perfect sweet and pink for this:
It took some looking to find a jar to house 116 candies (11-6 was MOH-Ho's wedding date) just right! 
I had MOH-Ho's now hubby read all the answers to her. It was a great way to involve the groom, and it bought me time away to figure out the winners of the other games.
If I recall correctly, Momma MOH-Ho was the winner for the first question with 'Chip Clip'. Many answers, along with MOH-Ho's responses to them, tickled funny bones around the room.
Games are best when there are prizes, and it's fun adding a little competition. Since MOH-Ho's choice of a Pampered Chef shower eliminated the gift opening portion of a standard shower, having her award prizes gave something for the guests to unwrap and 'ooo-and-ahh' a little bit over. Again I chose some food related items (for the candy jar game, winner took home the jar with the M&M's):
I decorated some of the wrapper with left over vellum strips from the vanilla extract & sugar favors project (which were scraps from the shower invite envelopes):
I also bought a half pound box of See's truffles as a raffle prize. To encourage guests to participate in the games, the game cards were used as raffle tickets for the final prize.
A mini assembly line was formed quickly. Da Hubs set up each cube and Bro-GT did the cutting and blade cleaning:
To make these you'll need:
There's only one step to the process - cut a slot in the cube to hold the card. Here are a few tips / lessons learned:
They do a great job holding up any small cards/signs/labels, but I think they look proportionally perfect with the little labels (see 2nd photo above) and would make excellent place card holders. Though I gotta say, double-teaming them to hold the bigger signs look pretty damn fabulous too:
I just love the simplicity, texture, and sweetness of these little holders. Out of all the details I put into this shower, I think this may just be my favorite :)
I later decided to add the vanilla sugar as well so that guests from the same household (aunt & cousin) won't have to take 2 of the same favor home.
Making vanilla extract is actually quite simple, all you're doing is soaking vanilla beans in vodka and letting it sit. Before doing my research I jumped the gun and bought premium grade vanilla beans, only to realized later that the cheaper lower grade versions (for the lower moisture content) were actually better for extract making. Oh well.
Madagascar vanilla beans are most commonly used for extract, so that's what I got. Beans are split in half and placed in bottles:
Then the bottles are filled with vodka. There are varying recipes out there for the proportions, but all say that more extract can be made by refilling with vodka. My interpretation of that is, if you let it sit long enough, most reasonable vanilla:vodka ratio will work. I put one bean in each bottle that holds about 1/2 cup of vodka.
You gotta shake 'em up real good and store in a cool and dark place for at least a couple of months, with additional shake sessions in between. I took these couple pics right after filling them all up. See the pretty color already showing?
The finishing touch was a paper strip seal plus tag that matches the rest of the shower stationary. The strips were nothing but scraps made useful. Remember the shower invites vellum envelopes? Before cutting them down to the right envelope size, I printed on the edges like this:
so they can be cut to make the paper strip seals. They were first attached with rubber cement, which worked well but was a bit messy. In the end, MOH-Ho just ran them through her trusty Xyron for ease. On the back of the matching tag was a thank you note and instructions on making the refills.
For the sugar I chose the more fruity Tahitian beans, which were cut diagonally into small pieces to provide the most vanilla exposure.
I filled the chosen jar with table sugar to get the right amount:
then mix the vanilla bits with the sugar:
Pour them back into the jars, seal, and that's it! I left these alongside the extract to sit for months.
The little specks spread in the sugar was really quite pretty, if only I had the photography skills to capture it...
And that's it! I was pleasantly surprised at how well these turned out, I sure hope the guests like them!
I have a 3-table set up for the food and drinks and each one will have one of these banners:
I couldn't leave the water bottles naked so they too have matching labels. We went with MOH-Ho's favorite design...
but I had to get one with the label design that was my fav :)
The skewers for the chocolate fountain are dressed up with little letter flags on top that spell s-u-g-a-r:
Phew! Now if you can stand more of this crazy matchy-match pink mush, the heavier DIY projects are coming up!
