The Very Hungry Caterpillar Party Food

The food for my Very Hungry Caterpillar themed party was super fun! I just did all the food that the caterpillar ate in the book by Eric Carle, and added a fun twist to it.

 

On Monday he ate through one apple,

 

On Tuesday he ate through two pears,

 On Wednesday he ate through three plums,

On Thursday he ate through four strawberries,

On Friday he ate through five oranges,

 

 

On Saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake,

(I got my cakes from http://sprinklebellecakes.com/ in Utah. She is amazing and does all my cakes)

Apple and Caterpillar SMASH CAKE!!!!

 

 

 

One ice cream cone,

(I displayed the cones on my treat table, and then I didn't forget about the ice cream in freezer when it was time for cake and ice cream. I always forget about the ice cream!)

 

One pickle,

 

One slice of Swiss cheese,

(I included some cheddar cheese slices for the kids too)

 

One slice of salami,

(I also included turkey slices, rolls, and butterfly shaped crackers to enjoy with the salami and cheese. I loved the butterfly crackers (get it!?) with my caterpillar theme)

 

One lollipop,

(Lollipop display box how-to is here

http://berriesofwisdom.blogspot.com/2014/07/lollipop-display-box.html )

 

 

One piece of cherry pie,

 

One sausage,

(I made hot dogs, bratwursts, and lil' smokies in sauce to represent sausage. My lil' smokies recipe is a couple packages of lil' smokies, a jar of grape jelly, and a bottle of chili sauce. Throw it all in a crockpot, heat till warm)

 I loved this sun balloon because of the big sun in the Eric Carle books.

 

 

One cupcake,

(you can find my cupcake topper how-to here

 http://berriesofwisdom.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-very-hungry-caterpillar-party.html )

 

and one slice of watermelon,

 

On Sunday he ate through one nice green leaf,

(I made a nice, delicious salad for the leaf)

 

Drinks, condiments, fruit bowl, etc....

 

 

This cute bowl is called a fill-a-bowl. You can fill the side with whatever you want. I used runts and chewy lemonhead friends in the fruits/colors that the caterpillar eats and created the fun sides of the bowl. I filled the bowl with all the fruits the caterpillar eats too. The caterpillar on top is a kids travel pillow that I got from TJ Maxx for $7. For easy directions on how-to make the cute paper plate caterpillar go here http://berriesofwisdom.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-very-hungry-caterpillar-party.html.

 

HUNGRY CATERPILLAR TREAT TABLE

 

 I did a candy to represent each fruit that the caterpillar eats. Plum was hard to find a (desirable) candy, so I used purple huckleberry taffy.

 Pear jelly belly

 Of course, my beautiful cakes were on my treat table

 

 SMASH CAKE!!!

Orange slice candy

 Green apple jolly rangers. And I love the '1' candle inside the jar too (this was for my daughter's first birthday party).

 

 Strawberry sour straws

 Sour watermelons

 Watermelon jolly rangers, sour worms (or caterpillars), and I used gummy worms (or caterpillars) too.

 

And my cupcakes, lollipops, cherry pie, and ice cream cones were also on my treat table.

 

Every item was labeled with a card explaining the day of the week and the food eaten that day. I got the cards as a free download from http://www.polkadotsandpuppies.com/2011/04/grants-1st-birthday-party.html. Of course, a couple copies of the book were on my table too. I was so happy with how everything turned out, and the food was so fun to do and was over half the cuteness and the décor of the whole party too.

Cakes: Sprinklebelle Cakes http://sprinklebellecakes.com/

 

Card download: Polka Dots and Puppies http://www.polkadotsandpuppies.com/2011/04/grants-1st-birthday-party.html



 

Photography: Jaime, PB&J Photos by Jamie (the good photos, my personal camera is terrible!) https://www.facebook.com/PbjPhotosByJaime



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.