Monday, October 4, 2010

Very Hungry Caterpillar Party

The theme of my son's first birthday party was Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", which was his favorite book at the time. Since this party was a few years ago, Very Hungry Caterpillar merchandise was not as abundant as it has been since the book celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. So, there was nothing else to do but to make everything from scratch!


I made a custom caterpillar banner from paper plates, craft foam and pipe cleaners.


I bought a "Baby Einstein" caterpillar pinata online and then pulled it apart, painted it, and re-fashioned it into a "Very Hungry" caterpillar.


I made caterpillar pizzas for the children, using pepperoni for the caterpillar bodies, olives for the eyes and mouth and bell peppers for the legs and antennae.


I had a local bakery make a custom caterpillar cake for the party.


And I made coordinating caterpillar cupcakes! I made caterpillar centerpieces, using floral foam spheres, skewers and pipe cleaners. I also made paper butterflies on sticks and displayed them in apples and pears (which the Caterpillar eats on Monday and Tuesday!). On our kitchen counter, I displayed all the food eaten by the caterpillar in the book.


I also ordered a "mini"cake for my son to dig in to! He had a blast with it!


I painted some paper lanterns with water colors and attached pipe cleaners to make a caterpillar that I hung overhead.


I made a giant butterfly out of craft foam to serve as a focal point over the fireplace...


...and I made a foam caterpillar and food muriel, showing all of the food that the caterpillar ate.


I bought live butterflies from a butterfly farm and we released them at the end of the party. The whole party was very symbolic of the end of babyhood--my little caterpillar was turning one and into a beautiful "one year old" butterfly himself! 


I created a custom T-shirt design on the computer and used iron-on transfers to make a very special T-shirt for my son to wear. The front reads "It's my very special birthday"...

..."And I'm hungry" is on the back of the T-shirt.

5 comments:

  1. I love your ideas here! So practical, yet perfect

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  2. vERY CREATIVE INDEED....AND CUTE TOO!

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  3. This is great and so creative!! We love it! We are going to link to it on our official World of Eric Carle page!

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  4. Thanks World of Eric Carle. You made my day!

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  5. What a good idea! I just love love love your butterfly over the fireplace. It actually looks like the butterfly in the book! Those pizzas are awesome. Everything looks fab. Congratulations!

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