"1" Hungry Little Caterpillar

My niece turned 1!

What a great time planning and throwing a Hungry Caterpillar 1st Birthday Party.  It was soooooo simple, yet soooooo effective! 

Paige's parents made invitations that looked like a big leaf with a caterpillar climbing on it...the who, what, when, and where were printed on each "vein" on the leaf for the party.

Decorations included helium balloons.  We chose to use 6 -- 1 red for the head and 5 for each letter in her name!  We used a black sharpie marker to sketch a face on the red balloon and a letter on each of the following...Black pipe cleaners became antennas  by curling the ends of 2 and taping them on the back of the caterpillars head... legs/feet were produced by folding 1 black pipe cleaner in half and just wrapping it around the base of the each balloon.. also bending out the ends to make the feet.  It was important to tape the balloons together so the name was legible and the effect was MUCH better that way -- Balloons "dance" around ALOT.  Her parents bought her a butterfly puppet just like in the book...The caterpillar we created!

We created caterpillars for a fun activity for the children that attended... The 1 year old's Mommy demonstrated the easy and fun to make craft and the kids finished them with pride quite quickly -- a key at a busy party!!  So it went really well!

The party was around Christmas so the "party" pack of pompoms on sale were the PERFECT colors for our project.  1 red for the head and a variety of greens for the bodies.  There were different sizes within the party bags so we decided to separate them into prepackaged bags for each child that way the bodies matched the heads, etc... They each grabbed a bag that contained their pompoms, 2 googly eyes, 1 cut pipecleaner about 1 1/2 inches long for the antennas and 1 mouth (made of black construction paper punched out with a hole punch!).  We supplied glue bottles they shared.  Just a dot of glue in between each pompom and don't forget to stick the antennas in between the red and 1st green one before the glue dries.  We wrote their names on one big cardboard box where they placed their caterpillar to dry -- why we did the project first. 


These are like the ones we made (Guess
we didn't get a picture?)

They served a delicious lunch and included these adorable kebabs out of green grapes and strawberries.  They were a huge hit.  We placed them in a tall glass, so they were easy to grab as a fun treat.



 


Cake -- Well cupcakes mostly!  The face of the caterpillar is a small 4" round, the cupcakes are held in place with a dab of frosting on the bottom of each.  We also used pipecleaners on the cakes for a 3D effect for the antennas.  Such a simple cake (plenty of extra green cupcakes were made to serve as well!) with such a BIG impact. 

The 1st birthday girl needed her own cake to get messy with.  I used a mini muffin pan for the body of her caterpillar.  I think she enjoyed it...wouldn't you agree?

Paige did so good being the center of attention.  She had quite a busy schedule with her first Christmas and birthday in the same week.  We all enjoyed the party and hope someday she thinks it was just as special as I did!