Baby Shower Diaper Cake and Safari Animals

Agenda: Find two "boy" ideas to make table centerpieces for up-coming baby showers. Wasn't sure what the themes for the showers were but when browsing the Internet for baby shower and decoration ideas, saw some nifty paper plates with safari animals on them. Wah-lah! They were so ultra cute so thought I'd cut some out in wood for laying around the central tables. Wasn't sure of the theme but everyone loves baby animals, so this seemed to be a universally bright idea.

Cut the animals out in pine—pine takes water colors easily and I have a lot of it on hand. And used a fresh blade so that I wouldn't have to sand much in the leg areas. Because they cut so smoothly, I took a surface sander and mostly gave the tops and bottoms a good sanding—don't want any rough parts if the baby plays with them.

The painting took a fair bit of time. I got a lot of compliments on painting the face of the lion but, wow, that was very easy. It was those lousy stripes on the zebras that took so much time. The baby zebra got all messed up the first time around so sanded it down again, painted a white layer over the still-visible marks and put the stripes back on. Better.

Painting the safari animals:

The animals range from about 2 1/2" to just under 5", from the baby zebra to the giraffes.

The baby zebra was by far the hardest to paint. This is the second time around.
The first time the lines were thick and all over the place. The black bled on one of the zebras quite badly
so later touched it up with white.

The smallest giraffe in the pict was an "accident". I was trying to use up the whole board and by moving my pattern around and revising a bit as I went along, I got 3 giraffes instead of the expected two. I still had a tiny bit of wood that looked like it held a giraffe inside, so maneuvered around and was able to get the "baby" giraffe too.

I really like how the giraffes turned out! Most at the shower seemed to like them best too,
although the lions' faces got a lot of comment.

Kudos to my friend who made these ultra-cute diaper cakes. I was thinking to decorate the tables with only the animals in the center and some colored papers underneath, and she was thinking to make her diaper cakes and put a paper monkey on the top of each. I gave her the animals a few days in advance and she came up with this very artful arrangement! Not visible but out of the top of each diaper cake was a high-floating green balloon with streamers!