Saturday, June 29, 2013

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday

Months ago, I started planning a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party for Zach's 1st birthday. Little did I know how prophetic that choice was going to be. He really is like the Hungry Caterpillar in the way he eats. =)

My mom helped me out a ton with this party. It was meant to be fairly simple considering it's for a one-year-old, but it seems that even simple can be a lot of work. 

His shirt was just a white polo from Target with some felt circles sewn to it. I cut out the circles at work the night before (using my K-Cup as a guide!) and my mom sewed it together today before the party.

My mom made me this adorable tissue-paper garlands. I originally saw it done on another blog, but my moms followed the links to this DIY Tissue Garland. Seriously SO easy (or so it looked when she did it) and it added SO much to our decor. 

I had quite a few of these strung around the house: from the mantle, this one over the couch (on my currently bare wall), over the living room curtains and over the doorway in the dining room. Very colorful. I asked her to do the tissue circles double-layered. The blog I'd seen it on before only used a single layer of tissue and it was very transparent and I wanted a little more solid look.
I also put together a hanging caterpiller out of those tissue paper poms. There are a million tutorials out there, so I won't post one here. I just got red, light and dark green tissue and hung them from the ceiling with some fishing line. I had seen something like this made with hanging paper lanterns, but those things can be kinda expensive... so this was my alternative.

I was very excited about my food table. I researched lots of different parties and everyone had a cute idea. I finally decided on doing some simple foods and making cute little signs with wording from the book on them.

I got the graphics for the from Polka Dots and Puppies blog. (The link to her free printable is listed in the comments - FYI.) I made a little card for each thing for example: "On Saturday he ate through one PICKLE" or "In the light of the moon a little EGG lay on a LEAF". During the week, the caterpillar eats through a bunch of fruits and instead of having them each separate, I mixed them all up into a yummy fruit salad.
Our Hungry Caterpillar Food:
  • Small dill pickles
  • Mixed fruit salad (apples, pears, plums, strawberries and oranges)
  • Watermelon
  • Deviled eggs on lettuce leaves
  • Salami and Swiss cheese tray with butterfly crackers
For drinks we had iced tea and raspberry lemonade. I got these super cute mason jar lids for another party (which I have to blog about eventually) and had these red striped straws left over from my Red Hot Bunco party.

And lastly - but most importantly - the cake. I am so blessed to have a good friend who decorates cakes and she always makes my boys their birthday cakes and does an awesome job. This year was no exception with this adorable Hungry Caterpillar cake. Isn't he cute!?

So there it is... the Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party. It was fun, simple and fairly cheap. Perfect for a little boy who won't remember it. =)



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