Olivia Reese loved her Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party. She kept walking around saying "my dirf-day yayyyy." Almost every day she sings a section of Happy Birthday and gives everyone, including the dolls, a fake cake.
I love love love birthdays. As sentimental as I am and the fact that I can make and prepare something special for those I love, make birthdays my favorite. They take me back to my childhood. My mom is such a good mom and always did some of the most thoughtful things for my birthdays. Naturally, I want to pass that on to my children. Plus I happen to be a craft junky and a pinterest-holic. I have like 9,000 pins- and I WILL get to them all.
If you choose to do a Very Hungry Caterpillar Theme, I hope this blog will help you out. I started off insisting that I was going to do only Eric Carle decorations... I quickly realized that Eric Carle likes all of his decorations too and prices them accordingly. We were able to decorate our party on a budget and get our theme across at the same time.
Reese's Party Favors
Pottery Barn's website has several ideas for this party theme. I took their invitation idea and turned it into a favor jar. Luckily, Target occasionally carries Eric Carle items in their dollar section. I found Hungry Caterpillar crayon packs and cleaned them out!
Joanne's had the wooden fruit tags for mason jars. I painted them with acrylic and water to mimic the way the illustrations are done in the book.
Walmart had the butterfly sun catchers and jars.
My friend Kaitlyn made the caterpillars for the jars- with thin green wire, two different colors of small green pom poms, medium sized red pom poms, and purple pipe cleaners. She painstakingly cut out little yellow eyes and noses and colored them all.
I used three different ribbons that I found at Hobby Lobby. They were attached with hot glue so they could easily be removed later.
Since the caterpillar ate a lollipop on Saturday in the book- I added one to the favor jars.
* You could take corks and stamp circles onto the jars to look like the circles in the book.
Homemade Caterpillar Decorations
I bought super cheap paper plates in green (medium size) and red (large). The ears were cut by hand out of purple construction paper. The eyes and name were cut by my sister-in-law. She has a silhouette (so jealous).
You use a hole punch to make holes on the edge of the plate and then tie them together with pretty ribbon.
Food labels, Banners, and Confetti
My friend Kaitlyn found this Eric Carle sticker book.
Whenever its time for the kid's parties- she helps scout all the stores on her end for decorations.
If you like doing birthday crafts like I do, then you should totally invest in these punches. I use them every party and for several crafts (like magnets). Now if you have a fancy silhouette you won't need the punches. (HINT HINT HUBS)
I punched the scallops and circles out- glued them together- then added a sticker to each. For my food labels, we just hot glued sucker sticks (from Party City) on to the backs. For the banner- we hole punched two holes at the top and strung them on ribbon.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar's main colors are red & green- which can get a little "Christmas-y." So I threw the purple from his antennas into the streamers and all through the decor. We had splashes of yellow here and there and of course I had to sneak pink in for my baby girl.
Reese's Birthday Outfit
Her headband and personalized shirt were made by All About Couture on etsy.com. Silvia Hagans is the store owner. She does amazing work, she is very thorough and pours a lot of hard work into her custom pieces. She also did Reese's first birthday outfits.
Her skirt was from a different etsy shop- Creative Stiches by K. I really love that we are can wear all of the pieces of this birthday outfit again and again. Hubs said we had to start getting items that can be used for more than one day. So voila!
Joanne's also had the teacher's bulletin board kit in The Very Hungry Caterpillar! The tin was from Reese's first birthday (see Hubs, more than one use) and the tissue paper came from Target. It isn't Eric Carle, but it sure was cheaper ;)
I hot glued two big popsicle/craft sticks and then glued the caterpillar to it. Took me maybe two minutes and was a great center piece.
After the party- I was able to give my aunt, who is a teacher, the whole kit so she can decorate her bulletin board!
Here are those tags again. I get overly excited about my inexpensive and simple crafts that work out so well! Purple utensils from Party City and the red & green straws are from Talking Twine and Trim. The yellow ones are from Maddox's first birthday (Glitter Daisy Shop). The green and red were too "Christmas'y" on there own. Our cups were yellow, napkins were purple, and we used two different greens for the plates.
You just need lanterns and an extra large purple pipe cleaner.
I couldn't pull any of this off without good help though.
Patiently waiting... watching us decorate!
We also made a birthday photo banner! My sister-in-law used her silhouette to cut the circles out of green and red. Then we cut out the photos and tied the caterpillars body together with string. * Silly me forgot to photograph the finished product :(
Party Food
The menu for this party is already planned for you! Monday through Friday he ate- an apple, two pears, three plums, four strawberries, and five oranges (cuties).
Saturday he ate...
- One piece of chocolate cake (brownies)
- One ice cream cone (we skipped that one- we had enough sugar already)
- One pickle
- One slice of swiss cheese, one slice of salami, (we had turkey and swiss mini sandwiches- close enough)
- One lollipop (in the favors)
- One piece of cherry pie- my home made tarts, we make our "Pop Tarts." They are so simple and way healthier. They were a hit at the party. (Recipe coming soon.)
- One sausage- pigs in a blanket
- One cupcake- skipped these too since we had cake, if I had done them I would've done them in green and made one big red one
- One slice of watermelon
Hubs made caterpillar kabobs- white and red grapes & wooden skewers. He hot glued a piece of Styrofoam to the bottom of the tin and stuck the skewers in.
Presents!
Safe to say, she loved her trike! It an all in one- I can steer her while she learns to pedal and steer herself, then I can remove the pieces to turn it into a little bike.
Found the butterfly decorations at Walmart in their craft section.
Cake Time
