The thought of planning a baby shower was incredibly overwhelming to me. I really wanted to get together with family and friends and celebrate my pregnancy. But all the hard work and money it would take to plan my baby shower was not something I was looking forward to. I wanted something simple and laid back. Which is why I felt like a budget DIY baby shower was the perfect choice for me!
Although I wanted a laid back baby shower, planning a baby shower is still a big responsibility. There are tons of small details to sort out. You have to think about decorations, food, entertainment, and gifts. After all, you want to make sure things are as special for your guests as they are for you!
With all of these little details, expenses can quickly add up. And before you know it, your baby shower is much more expensive than you wanted. (Hey, that sounds JUST like my wedding!)
However, you should know that you don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to have a great baby shower. Bust out your craft supplies and spend a few hours working on homemade decorations and you are guaranteed to save money!
Keep reading to learn a few great ideas to create your own decorations and prepare a fun, cheap DIY baby shower without spending any more money than you need to.

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1 – Create a DIY Diaper Centerpiece
Creating a great centerpiece is the perfect way to impress your guests right when they step in the door. Plus, it’s a great way for your baby shower to be memorable to everyone. However, paying for one can be incredibly expensive. To save money (AND make something you can use later), put together a diaper centerpiece.
These are super simple to make and look amazing! Open a pack of diapers and roll them into little tubes. Then arrange them into a cake shape and tie everything together with your ribbon. You can add cute little decorations like pacifiers, stuffed animals, and flowers. Honestly, you can add anything to personalize it even more and truly make it a show stopper. And after the baby shower, you’ll have a whole stock of extra diapers to use when your baby arrives.
Pro-Tip: If you’re wanting to create a tiered diaper centerpiece, I’ve heard that it’s best to use larger size diapers in the base of your cake and smaller diapers in the top layers. This helps it to look more natural and be more sturdy for you.

2 – Make a Banner
Adding a cute banner behind your cake and gifts is the easiest way to make your baby shower decorations really stand out. And you can make these on your own instead of rushing to the store or paying someone to make them for you.
Once you pick your theme and the colors you want to use, cut out pieces of paper into the size that you want. Then you can cut out letters with your baby’s name, “Welcome Baby!,” or any other phrase that works for you! Glue on the letters. Then add your paper to a piece of string to finish your easy DIY baby shower banner.
If you’re lazy like me and this is just a bit too much work, you can check out this post. You can find free downloads for some great banners and also get tons of ideas for baby shower games, invitations, and more. My favorite is the Harry Potter set, which we will definitely be using with baby number 2!
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3 – Add in a Few Giant Baby Blocks
If you want to add in even more and create an awesome decoration everyone will rave about, make your own giant baby blocks. These are the perfect baby shower decoration and they’re so simple to make. I think these giant blocks have a fun nostalgic look that everyone will love. I secretly want to add in a few around my house because they look so good!
To make them, all you’ll need is some old cardboard boxes (preferably big, square ones) and some spray paint or colored paper. If you choose to spray paint, first you create a template of your letters. Then tape it to your box and spray in the letters. Remove the paper once it’s dry and you’ve got awesome baby blocks! If you don’t want to use spray paint, you can also cut out the letters on colored paper and tape those to your box instead.
This is such an affordable way to elevate your DIY baby shower and add in a few more simple decorations for your party. Plus it could serve as a great spot for a photo opportunity!
Pro-Tip: Although the
spray paint method is messier, you end up with a better looking finished product than when you tape the letters on.

4 – Think About Party Favors You Can Give to Your Guests
I think it’s such a nice token of appreciation when moms-to-be gift everyone a small little gift. It’s a great way to say thank you for coming. Plus it will remind them of the fun they had celebrating with you! Unfortunately, party favors can be super expensive and your goal is to have an affordable baby shower.
Luckily, you can easily make tons of different baby shower gifts that are super sweet and affordable. At the last baby
Another great idea is to create a mug that you can share with all of your guests. If you have a Cricut, or any other vinyl cutting machine, you can follow these steps to make a homemade coffee mug with any saying that you want! You can even personalize it for each guest if you’re feeling extra ambitious.

As you can see, throwing a great baby shower doesn’t have to mean spending loads of money.
If you use these simple DIY decorations or check out even more ideas on Pinterest (seriously, the sky is the limit!), you can have a fantastic, affordable baby shower and save money for when your baby gets here.
Also, I’ll let you in on a quick little secret. I actually missed out on a baby shower with my baby. Yup! I was too sick throughout my third trimester and we weren’t sure how quickly I’d recover after he got here. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to make my own cute little decorations and host a fun party. Instead, I had a super laid back and informal baby shower every time people came over to visit my new baby!
Although I missed out on my first baby shower, I’m glad I’ve learned so much about ways to make my next baby shower easy, laid back, and affordable. And I can’t wait to plan for an affordable DIY baby shower with my next baby!
Did you have a baby shower? What were your favorite decorations that you had at your party?
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Awesome resources!
Thanks for sharing such a good article. This is really helpful.
Thank you so much!! 🙂
Cool and attractive which are very useful, Thanks for sharing this article. Keep going on..
I love the pro-tips! Super helpful DIY, and they really are super easy to do. I love saving money!! ????
Thank you so much for your feedback! I’m glad the extra pro-tips are helpful!! I’m already excited to use these ideas whenever I have baby number 2! 🙂
I love a good DIY! I usually help with decorating baby showers at our church. Big balloons and dollar store table cloths are a must for me. I also like to use things that I already have on hand to cut down the cost ????
These are great suggestions! I also try to do as much with things I already have around the house and it is such a great way to save money! I also love the idea of the big balloons!
Great ideas! You should make a post on making the diaper centerpieces. I have always failed at those lol
That is a great idea!! Thanks for suggesting it!
I am always all for simple ways to save some money, yet still producing a quality product. These are all awesome suggestions to make that happen for an awesome baby shower.
I’m the same way! I love saving money but still finding a way to make things look great! 🙂
I was very fortunate to have a sister in law to throw a baby shower for me and my sister threw one for my first pregnancy… I HATE planning parties!
Yay!! That’s the best!! I’m a terrible party planner too, so this sounds perfect!
The homemade soap and coffee mugs are great ideas for party favors!! It is such a useful party favor. I love planning DIY parties so this post is right up my alley.
I love both of these ideas as well! I think they are such fun party favors and I love that you can make your own favors to send with your family and friends.
These are really good ideas and also very affordable. My mom made a diaper cake for my baby shower and it was my favorite part (it was really hard for me to take it apart and use them) because I thought it was so pretty. Really Like your idea of making homemade soap bars too that is such a nice touch.
That’s interesting! I never would have thought about how challenging it would be to take apart! I’ll remember that when I make one and see if I can use as few materials as possible. I also love the homemade soap bar idea! My friend and her mom did a great job and I loved being able to take it home!
These are all great ideas! I ended up with 3 baby showers that different groups of family/friends had for me. I thoroughly enjoyed them because literally all I did was show up and socialize. I did see a really cute way to make a tricycle out of diapers, a baby blanket and stuffed animals. I think that would be fun to do for a center piece.
That sounds so fun and so perfect!! They did a great job! That diaper tricycle sounds amazing! I agree that it would be a perfect centerpiece!
I love the homemade soap idea. What a fantastic idea!! I love hosting any kind of party! It’s so much fun!!
Trish
I thought the soap was one of the coolest ideas ever! I think of my friend every time that I see the bar of soap. 🙂
I love your idea for the home made soap as party favors! I can never come up with a good guest gift / party favor when I throw baby or wedding showers. This is such a great (and versatile) idea!
I thought it was such a unique idea too! I love the one that we got at my friend’s baby shower! 🙂