A while ago I came across an adorable birthday party theme – The Very Hungry Caterpillar, based off the children’s book by Eric Carle. Since I absolutely LOVE children’s books and since Grant looked like the very hungry caterpillar for the majority of his first year of life, I knew I had to do that for Grant’s 1st birthday. I do realize the party is for a 1-year old little boy who will remember NOTHING of his big day, but his mother, on the other hand, will. I have discovered that party planning is an outlet for my creative side. I really enjoy finding great ideas online (yes, sad to say, I really can’t take credit for any of the ideas), and I especially love all the little details that make it even more fun and thematic. I also enjoy doing it all on a tight budget. The main expenses for this party were the food, water bottle labels (which, in the future, I will be designing on my own), and his birthday shirt. So you might look at this party and think, “Wow…that’s a lot for a 1 year-old party”, but in my mind, it’s one way for me to do something different, creative, and fun for this stay-at-home mommy.
So this first post will just be pictures of the decorations and food. Then next I'll actually post pics of the birthday boy! :)
The caterpillar invitations
I've made it my goal to make my childrens' birthday cakes each year. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to do that, especially since I'm discovering my kids aren't much of cake-eaters - they seem to prefer ice-cream. Hmm...I might have to start getting creative.
Here's Grant's individual "smash" cake.
I found these labels on Etsy and thought they were adorable! If I had discovered them earlier, I would have just made them myself. I thought they were a cute addition to the party and the theme. I basically just bought the PDF file and then printed them myself on regular paper. I research online and found some places that sell water-resistant labels, but I couldn't justify the cost. So instead I improvised. I used clear packing tape, which happened to be the same width (thank goodness!) and just put tape on both sides of each label. Then I adhered them to the water bottle using some of my strong scrap booking adhesive dots.
My makeshift balloon caterpillar. I ran out of time to add his purple antennae...oh well! Still turned out cute.
I also scanned in all the food from the book, cropped them, printed them on cardstock, cut them out, and taped them to the walls for added decoration around the house.
In the entryway I had a basket holding the favors - bags of gummy worms.
I printed "Thanks for crawling over" on cardstock from my computer and actually made the paper behind it. If you're familiar with "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book, you'll recognize the dotted paper from the book. In the book it's just a small strip across the bottom of the front of the book. So I scanned it in and copied it multiple times in a word document to make my own paper.
Out front Drew helped me staple some more of the food on some extra paint stirrer sticks we had laying around and we stuck them in the bushes.
I've seen online how people have made these birthday balloon wreaths that they put out for the birthday's in their family. I LOVED the idea and have wanted to make one for our family for a while. So I finally did it! The plan is to put it out for the week of the person's birthday. So for Grant, I decided to add a few "caterpillar" touches to it. I printed off some smaller pictures of the caterpillar and food from the book and used floral wire to hang them on the wreath.
And now some pictures of the food...
The food table - I had all the food from the book...
...and made signs with the wording from the book.
Below it says, "On Saturday, he ate through one slice of salami, but he was still hungry."
For the ice-cream cone, I saw online where you freeze buttercream icing and then scoop it out like ice-cream to put in the cone. Then you can set it out for the party without worrying about it melting.
I had some extra batter from the cakes, so I made some cupcakes and then iced most of them with white icing. I used a few cupcakes to make a caterpillar with the red head and green body.
"On Sunday, he ate through one nice green leaf and after that he felt much better."
Next I'll post pictures of the birthday boy and the actual party!
