Planning a baby shower? Baby showers are a great opportunity for artistic people to make their own decorations and gifts. Here are some fine ideas for baby shower crafts:

1) Baby shower gift baskets - Gift baskets are a great baby shower centerpiece or gift. Many of the items in the basket can be handcrafted. Some ideas include candles, soap, ceramic figurines, and personalized jelly jars.

2) Diaper cakes - A diaper cake is an easy to make gift or centerpiece for a baby shower. This is a great gift idea for the person hosting and planning the shower. Basically, get a lot of diapers and attach them together with pins or glue. You can use towels or blankets to wrap around the outside of each layer and add a teddy bear or other centerpiece on top of the diaper cake. The new mother will have plenty of diapers and gifts she can use from the diaper cake and it looks great as a centerpiece too.

3) Baby Bottle centerpiece - A large baby bottle centerpiece is a great idea for baby showers. The bottle can be filled with candy, nuts, and other treats for your guests. The bottle can be made of clay or ceramics and hardened in an oven. It can then be painted and glazed. You can also purchase plastic bottle centerpieces and then use artwork to design a personalized label.

5) Banners and streamers - You can design your own banners and streamers for baby showers. With a graphics program on your computer, play around with different colors and fonts to see which ones look best. You can save your artwork to disk and take it to your local printer to have them print out full size banners. For an added touch, attach pacifiers or mini pacifiers to the banners when you hang them around the walls.

There are so many great ideas for making your own baby shower decorations and gifts. With just a little time and effort, you can make your baby shower a memorable occasion.

About the Author - Criss White is a professional web writer on baby and new mother topics for baby and pregnancy websites. To see other related items, go to Baby Shower Crafts (http://www.101babyshowerideas.com/bscrafts.htm) and Baby Shower Favors to Make (http://www.101babyshowerideas.com/makefavors.htm). Note: If you find this article useful, you may reprint it on your website, e-zine, or in your newsletter as long as the credits above remain in tact and the hyperlinks stay active.