Buga just had a birthday party. We celebrated Eric Carle-style with a Hungry Caterpillar themed party. It was so bright, colorful, and cheerful – just what we all needed this time of year. I did some online searching for party theme ideas and in collaboration with my own ideas, here’s what we came up with.
I made the banner above with some Eric Carle Fabric I had round the studio. I thought it made for the perfect Welcome to our Hungry Caterpillar Party.
Here is our Banister Mascot – Mr. Caterpillar. My cousins fashioned a face for him out of construction paper – I think he looks friendly!
Here is our Food Table as we were preparing for the party. I found a Hungry Caterpillar themed game on the clearance shelf at Target after Christmas. It was a card game with the different days and things the caterpillar eats throughout the week. I just used two of the same picture on each popsicle stick and used them to adorn the table and share the story, too.
The “Leaf” he eats is salad. There is a whole Fruit Salad for Monday-Friday when he eats through all the fruit. A Pepperoni and Cheese tray for “Swiss Cheese”. Lollipops. Bread. Cake. Yum.
I don’t know if you can tell, but the “Strawberries” card is in a bouquet of Grape Kabobs. They are green grapes (for caterpillar bodies) with red strawberries (heads). Buga helped assemble these, too.
Buga requested only a few things for this party.
Party Hats – I couldn’t find Hungry Caterpillar ones, but I did find a nice Rainbow Stripe Party Hat I thought would match nicely. I used these and print out jumbo “Happy Birthday” notes and picture Stickers to hide the logo that was already on the party hats. Each hat has one of three different pictures : Caterpillar, Fat Caterpillar, or Butterfly.
Lollipops – Buga wanted lollipops for her party, so when I found these mini rainbow stick pops at Party City I thought they would make the perfect caterpillars. We just cut out caterpillar faces and taped them onto the lollipop sticks.
Party Favors for her friends – We chose to give out Eric Carle Books for party Favors. Right now, Kohls Cares has 4 different stories to choose from. They are hard cover books and they are only $5.00 each – money that goes to charity! Perfect. Hopefully I will be able to get a picture of these for you. It wasn’t anything too fancy, just the book with a ribbon attached and a circle printable that said “Happy Birthday Buga!” Each child could choose which book they wanted. I know the Hungry Caterpillar itself is very popular, and most children have this in their library already – so I made sure to have the other 3 available as well.
Favors for the younger ones – you can barely see them in the picture above, but they are there…I found clear plastic tubes at the craft store. We filled them up with Fruit Loops and added a “Happy Birthday Buga” Sticker to the tube. Yum!
Here’s Buga Blowing out the Candles on the last thing she wanted at her party : A Cake. It was just a white cake with homemade buttercream icing – I added a hint of almond extract to the cream and it really accented the taste – the adults loved it.
The CAKE!!
We covered the tiers in fondant – though I don’t care for the taste, I LOVE how clean it looks. Buga helped me put all those gumballs around the tiers. I just piped icing along the crease and we placed all different colors all the way around. I like how collaged it looks – perfect effect.
These are the circles for cake topper. When I cut out the “holes” in the food, I used the “hole” for this project. I inserted a 23 gauge wire through the circle and we painted each of them. Here they are collected in a jar.
I cut out all the food free-hand with a knife while looking at the pages of the book to account for all the pieces. I had lots of helpers who were willing to paint them while I put Buga to sleep. They just used food coloring and paint brushes to color the food pieces.
Here is the finished cake with all the fruit (Monday – Friday) on the bottom tier….
and all the junk food (Saturday) on the middle tier.
I like how the 3-d caterpillar on top turned out with all the shooting circles around him.
It was such a bright, happy cake!
Here is our Food Table as we were preparing for the party. I found a Hungry Caterpillar themed game on the clearance shelf at Target after Christmas. It was a card game with the different days and things the caterpillar eats throughout the week. I just used two of the same picture on each popsicle stick and used them to adorn the table and share the story, too. 
Buga requested only a few things for this party.
Oh.my.gosh.
I know what we're doing for Sunshines bday. My youngest LOVES the hungry caterpillar. So much we wear the spine out each year on a few copies. Babyhood was the worst with 1 every few months. I HAVE to do this! You my dear are brilliant! !!!
Honey
What a terrific party!! I love the balloon caterpillar! I made a little "book buddy" hungry caterpillar out of felt..to accompany the book and gave it as a gift to my nephew at Christmas time.
Georgia 🙂
PS. The link to the book buddy if you would like to check it out:
http://allthingschildren.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-buddies.html