The Very Hungry Caterpillar Party Decorations-Part III

My hubby gave me a smaller budget than I'm used to for my daughter's 1st birthday party, so I was 'forced' to make all my own decorations. Normally I would buy all sorts of cute banners and decor from someone on Etsy for WAY to much money (but very convenient), but I recently got a Cricut paper cutter and I have stacks of random scrapbook paper so I thought I could try to make everything myself. My  theme was The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which I felt would be easy because I could just cut out a bunch of circles. And it was super easy.

I made quite a few banners, and all but one of them were made using just the basic Cricut Cartridge that comes the Cricut paper cutter, so I didn't even have to buy any special cartridges for the banners.

The first banner I made was a Happy Birthday Banner.

 

 

The Happy Birthday Banner was just 3 separate banner; 1st banner read "Happy", 2nd banner read "Birthday", and the 3rd one had my daughter's name. I made sure to position the caterpillar head facing opposite directions on alternating banners.

 

Then I made a I am 1 Banner (this was for my little one's first birthday!)

 

 I originally planned to put this banner around the tabletop of the highchair, but then you couldn't read it all so we placed it on the wall behind the highchair. The banner looked cute underneath my Caterpillar Balloon guy too.

 

 

I also made a Very Hungry Caterpillar "Floormat" that I placed under the highchair

 

This cute guy was under the highchair to help catch some of the falling smash cake.

 

 

My favorite thing was the Year of Pictures Banner of my daughter:

 

 

 

 

(Left hand corner in the below pic, on the wall)

 

I placed a picture of my daughter, one for each month of her life so far (and then a couple extra irresistible photos too). And of course the caterpillar head at the beginning. 

 

And I made a FUN FOOD BANNER with all different food cut-outs (all items of food the caterpillar eats in the book). I made this banner using a couple other cartridges (Preserves Cartridge and Sweet Treats cartridge) and I used a lot of things I had already cut out for my centerpieces, but they had a mistake or couldn't be used for some reason. (Check out my Very Hungry Caterpillar Centerpieces here: http://berriesofwisdom.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-very-hungry-caterpillar-party.html )

 

 

 

For a majority of the banners, I just cut out a lot of circles. The circles for my Year of Photos Banner were a little larger (I think I cut the outer circle 7 inches), but all the rest were cut to 5 1/2 inch circles, mainly so that I could cut 4 circles out of each 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper and not waste too much excess paper. The inner circle was cut a little bit smaller, and the red circles for the head were cut the same size as the outer circles. And for the Year of Photos Banner, I printed 4x6 photo prints, And I cut them into 4 inch circles to place in the center of each circle.

 

Then I made the cute faces. I cut out 3 inch ovals (yellow), for the outer eyes. Then slightly smaller ovals (green) for the center of the eye and for the noses. For the antenna, I just cut them out with good old scissors since I didn't need too many and I didn't have a Cricut cartridge for the shape I wanted. I stuck butterfly stickers (from an Eric Carle set of stickers) for the spacing on the "I AM 1" banner and on the tail circles of the Happy Birthday banners. I pieced the circles together with present wrapping ribbon from the dollar store (except the Year of Photos Banner, I just taped each individual part on the wall).

 

I made sure to cut out a face for the Balloon Caterpillar

and a face for my paper plate caterpillar too while I was at it.

Directions for this paper plate caterpillar are here:

 http://berriesofwisdom.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-very-hungry-caterpillar-party.html 

He was super easy and very inexpensive too!

 

 

I cut out 11 1/2 inch circles for the caterpillar floormat, glued them together to fit through the legs of the highchair, and made another cute face and antenna.

 

 

I also used the same stickers and squares of colored scrapbook paper and toothpicks to make these cupcake toppers.

 

 

Lollipop Display Box

For my daughter's Very Hungry Caterpillar 1st  Birthday Party I  needed to display some lollipops (because on Saturday, the caterpillar ate one lollipop....).

 Until I started to organize my candy for my treat table, I had no idea how hard it was to display lollipops! I tried to just put them in a jar, a vase,  or a fancy glass or something cute like that, but nope, they don't stand up all cute and on display like I was envisioning. So last minute, I threw together a cute box to display the lollipops in.

I actually used the box that the lollipops came in (I ordered them off Amazon.com. They were cute and tasted good and not too expensive). I had 12 lollipops and I had 1 cute sign for the lollipops, so I poked 13 holes in the top of the box. I also filled the box with cheap dollar-store marbles so that the lollipops had something to stand upright in. Sand would also work too. However, when I make a lollipop display box again in the future, I think I'll put a solid Styrofoam piece in the bottom of the box and push the lollipop sticks down into it. (Styrofoam can also be purchased from a local dollar-store)

Then I wrapped the box with cute wrapping paper that matched my décor.

 And had I planned this out in advance, I would have bought cuter wrapping paper, and probably used green, but like I said before, this was a last minute project.

 

 I repoked the holes through the wrapping paper. But then I needed to cover the tape that was showing and I wanted to make it cuter, so I added some of my Eric Carle (Very Hungry Caterpillar) border to the box. I think fun scrapbook paper or maybe even a different wrapping paper would work and look great too.

 

Nurse Gift for when Having a Baby



My baby just turned a year old about a week ago, so I thought I would make a quick post about the gifts I made for the nurses when I had her. This was my second baby, and after having my first I had learned all the great and wonderful things the amazing nurses do for you AND for your baby while you're in the hospital. So I wanted something nice to thank them with.

 

These were very simple. I bought a bunch of things that I felt I would enjoy if I were working a 12-hour shift in a hospital. Almonds, candy, gum, granola bars, chap stick, mints, etc. I put it all in a clear bag, added a cute card that was from my baby saying "Thanks for taking such good care of my Mommy and Me! Love, Baby Nielsen". I cut the letters for 'Thanks' out of cute paper on my Cricut and I added some cute ribbon too!

 

 

 

My best friend's mom was a labor and delivery nurse for 30+ years and I asked her how many nurses I would have/gifts would I need. She told me they work 12-hour shifts, and that Mom has a nurse and baby has a nurse in the nursery. So that's 4 nurses a day, a normal stay is two full days, and then plan on showing up mid-shift. If I remember right, I made 10 gifts.

 

 

 

I made them about 8 weeks in advance. Before I was too exhausted from being pregnant and huge in general and it kept me busy and distracted me from other pregnancy anxieties and stresses. I then packed in my hospital so they were ready to go when baby came.

 

I got the best care while I was in the hospital! I like to think that the first nurses spread the word about how great I was and that the following the nurses took extra good care of me. I did have one overnight nurse that I didn't care for too much, so I did not give her a Thank You Gift, but overall, I think my nice gesture made my experience that much better.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Party Decorations- Part II

 

 

Like I said in my last post, I normally post party pictures AFTER the party happens. However, for my party I'm working on right now, I'm posting things as I make them. I'm working on a Very Hungry Caterpillar (book by Eric Carle) theme party for my daughter's first birthday. Keep following along, I'm excited to see how everything comes together at the actual party.

In this post, I'm going to show how I made my Caterpillar Candy Lei's and my Hungry Caterpillar Plate Centerpiece.

Caterpillar Candy Lei's

 

Hungry Caterpillar Plate Centerpiece

 

Caterpillar Candy Lei's

I'm excited about the candy lei's. I'm going to be using them on my tables as décor and they will also double as a favor for the kids (and in my family, the adults like party favors too). I found the green cellophane wrap from Hobby Lobby. It was the only place I could find green and it was only $2.99. I cut it down and placed 5 pieces of candy on top.

 

 Then just roll the wrap around the candy. Keep it flat.

 Don't twist it between the candy sections, keep it flat. If you twist it between the candy pieces, the candy moves around and the caterpillar won't lay nicely.

 I used red and yellow ribbon to tie off the sections. I used the red around the 'head', I felt it was easier then making a red face somehow. And I used yellow on the rest of him to add some color and contrast to the caterpillar.

 I cut off the ends and curled the ribbon. I also glued on some googly eyes, but you can't seem really see them here (sorry for the poor quality photos!)

 

 

 

I'm going to set these up on my tables around my centerpieces like this:

(And remember, this should look way better all set up at the actual party)

Check out how I  made the centerpieces here:

http://berriesofwisdom.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-very-hungry-caterpillar-party.html

 

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Plate Centerpiece

Now the easiest thing that I have made so far for this party has been the caterpillar plate centerpiece. I used red and green party paper plates that I actually bought from Walmart for $.48 a pack! And that's for 20 plates each, so that's a great party deal whether you're eating off them or decorating with them. I used an old wrapping paper roll and clear packaging tape too.

 

 I taped the bottom of the plates to the wrapping paper roll and the tops of the plates to each other.

 I made the faces with my Cricut and scrapbook paper. But I'm sure this would be very easy to cut out without a Cricut machine or anything special.

This cute guy is double-sided and I will be putting it on a countertop or table somewhere at the party.