I love showers. Wedding showers, baby showers, hot water showers … haha. Basically, I love to give gifts, it makes me feel like I am loving on someone with my gift to them. So I want each bridal shower gift that I give to be unique and tailored to the recipient and her husband. Usually, I make a good portion of the gift myself. That being said, I will share some of my favorite gifts.
This actually is not recent. I made this for a friend who was married in March 2009. I loved the colors of the towels and was so excited to find kitchen accessories to match. And yes, I did take the picture on the hood of my car behind my apartment. Oh how times have changed. 
This top picture is kitchen towels and utensils. (Yes, I realize the towels and utensils are not homemade, but I did put the gift together!)
This is a twist on the above gift. The towels are bath towels (2 bath, 2 hand, 2 washcloth) and then there are soaps attached. I made them, with this tutorial from Anne Marie, specifically for the bride, L, whose new last name was going to be N. She loved the gift (this was from last July).
This next gift was a set for a December shower. I made a table runner (although, I forgot to take a picture of it) which was used as a decoration. Then I filled a basket with these matching goodies, and some lingerie! (I took regular white dish towels and sewed on the strip of coordinating fabric to make the matching towels.)
For this gift, I quilted strips of fabric together and then onto the towel with their kitchen colors. I bought waffle weave fabric for the towel material. And the wine charms had cute little hearts with various blue and green beads. This would go perfectly with a set of wine glasses.
This gift is a fun summer one. I followed this tutorial to make a tea towel apron. I found the towel and matching pot holder and dish scrubbers at the Dollar Store. I know, this makes me sound cheap (and recipient, I know you are a reader, so sorry if it offends you!), but really it is not. Having such an adorable gift for cheap left me able to spend money on the shower (I made the favors and paid out of pocket) and on lingerie — because you can’t make cheap lingerie! Anyways, I packed this apron set up with some homemade spices and lingerie. (Next time I want to try this tutorial for the apron, so the pocket is on the bottom!)
This final gift set it my most recent shower gift, and it gets two pictures. I made these coasters to match the colors of the bride and groom’s house stuff. I followed this tutorial from Sew Mama Sew (if I do it again, I would enlarge the pattern a bit, as the coasters ended up tiny). Each back is a solid cut of one of the front colors (so one back was that black triangle pattern, one back was the brown lead … get it?). Anywho, I also made homemade spice rubs and labels and rosemary olive oil. I finished the gift up with some of my favorite recipes (saved them in word and printed them on cardstock with cute little graphics) and accessories (measuring spoons and such) from the Dollar Tree — I couldn’t believe they had the exact colors I needed. The bride loved this gift and I loved making it.
(If you are interested, I can do another post with the recipes for the rubs that I used, and the PDF images of the labels. Let me know if you want to see that!)
I hope you enjoyed looking at some of my favorite shower gifts that I have given. I loved making each one of these and knowing that it was going to bless the bride that received it. I also have a great bachelorette gift from Jess, but that will have to wait for another day. What do you like to give as shower gifts? Is there a favorite gift that you received?
