Gender Reveal Part 1
So, I’ve been getting A LOT of inquiries regarding the way we will be revealing the gender of our little Turkey Baby. So below I will go in detail of this portion of the reveal – the prep. And then after our event I will finish it off with Part II!
The back story:
With all the Pinterest ideas out there and things are on repeat with how other parents have revealed, I wanted to be a little unique and a little creative. I pretty much have seen it all… balloons in boxes, cakes being cut, cupcakes being eaten all with the corresponding color inside. When it comes to sentimental ideas I have, it always (of course) has a special reason and a meaning. So this was no exception. When Mitchell and I got married, our reception was… pretty out of the norm. I mean we had nerf guns, sabering champagne, dubstep music and also GLOW STICKS. Mitchell and I were quite the partiers growing up in our younger ages and especially for Mitchell glowsticks were a perfect addition to our reception. So I haven’t seen anyone having a glow stick gender reveal… Maybe one if I search hard on google. But I haven’t seen much on Pinterest so I thought it was “safe” to do being that I wanted something unique and creative.
Now then…
The Theme: Black & White Polka Dots
This was the plan. Glow sticks. Perfect. So I thought real hard how can I accomplish doing this without myself or Mitchell finding out first. We wanted to find out all at once during our gender reveal party. So here’s what I did:
I purchased glow sticks from Coolglow.com (also available on amazon.com for cheaper).
I bought 50 pink and 50 blue 6″ glow sticks (figuring we’d have around 50 guests in attendance plus having to mail some sticks to our immediate family members who could not be at the party. For ALL of the left over glow sticks, we will use in the future I am SURE of so I wasn’t afraid to purchase such a hefty amount.)
I also bought 2 pink and 2 blue 12″ baton glow sticks for Mitchell and I to break during the reveal.
Here’s what the Glow sticks looked like:
So when the Glow sticks arrived, I made baggies for them. I bought these black and white bags at Michaels (around $3 for a package of 16) along with some white and black ink and a polka dot stamp.
I went to town… making approximately 40 baggies each black and white with alternating ink colors. Here’s what some of them looked like:
I then mixed the baggies up so that it was even, each colored glow stick got the same amount of white and black baggies. I placed one glow stick in each baggie and then applied washi tape to seal it off. Purchased these through Etsy and the Le Paper Cafe shop.
I purchased 4 large envelopes for the 12″ Glow stick batons. I cut two of them and slid them into the other two so that in the end I had two large envelopes with another envelope inside to provide the maximum protection against wandering eyes. No peaking for Mama and Daddy!!!
I then had to get the cards out of the way. We decided to send a glow stick to just the family members who we originally sent our first baby announcement (click here to see that blog post) to when we first found out we were pregnant – for a total of 6 cards. I then had to double that so there was 12 cards total – 6 cards with pink glow sticks and 6 cards with blue glow sticks. Here’s how they came out:
I added a little bit of confetti and sealed it with some more washi tape and a nice sticker:
So I organized the baggies, the batons and the cards into separate boxes.
All the pink were in one box and all the blue in another box.
I put a post-it on each to help the tech know which one is which.
So yesterday was my ultrasound. I brought these boxes into the office and gave the Ultrasound Tech the instructions. (She was completely ECSTATIC and willing to participate 100%. She even said she wants to see the video during the reveal – so nice of her) I told her to put an X or a smiley face on the box of the gender and to take off the post-it. So I left the room and she came to the waiting area after she was done. I even brought a “final envelope” with me so that she can put the “official” ultrasound picture in it which is stuffed somewhere in my sock drawer.
So there ya have it! A super secret gender reveal successfully completed this portion! Now if I can only find a venue to host this event……………… 🙂