A Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party

Last week O turned 3. ( I know!) Not really one to get emotional about things like going to school, this one got me. Three just seems so old!

O had plans to see both sets of Grandparents within two weeks on either side of his birthday so we decided to just have a little playdate on a weekday morning with a few of his friends to celebrate this year.  The theme…A Very Hungry Caterpillar! I’m sure you know the book, right? A Caterpillar hatches from an egg, eats right through a lot of delicious food, builds a cocoon and (SPOILER ALERT!) turns into a beautiful butterfly! It’s a beautiful book by Eric Carle and I decided, if this is possibly the last year that I really get to choose the party theme, we were doing Very Hungry Caterpillar! But don’t worry, O does actually love the book, I wasn’t imposing some random theme on him.  But he loves a lot things so I picked what I thought would make a cute party (and be the most fun for me to plan!). I was thrown for a bit of a loop when about five minutes after I got out of the shower all the water went off in our building and stayed off until noon.  Note to self, next time plan drinks that aren’t only water based like coffee and lemonade!  Luckily my nine months pregnant friend saved the day and ran out to get a couple liters of water so we had something to drink!

Anyway, with the help of Pinterest and some brainstorming, here is what we did!

For decorations, I scanned some pages from the book and used them in various ways like this Birthday Pennant Banner:

I also had some caterpillars hiding around the house

And even a life-sized very hungry caterpillar enjoying a “nice green leaf”!

But my most favorite decoration was an idea I got from Pinterest to make a Very Hungry Caterpillar out of balloons. I think it turned out pretty well, Pinterest WIN!

One thing that made the Very Hungry Caterpillar a great party theme is that is has built-in menu ideas!  Of course we ate foods that the Caterpillar enjoys in the book!

There were two plums, one slice of watermelon, four strawberries, and one apple…

Once slice of salami, a pickle and one slice of swiss cheese…

And of course, cupcakes and “lollipops” for dessert. The cupcakes were white cake with chocolate chips and vanilla frosting.

And the “lollipop” cookies were vanilla sugar cookies.  Hey look! The Caterpillar already ate a hole through the lollipops!!

I set up a little coloring station (washable crayons are the best invention EVER!) and the kids got to color in their own Very Hungry Caterpillar. (Printable coloring page available here, directly from Eric Carle’s website!)  Other than that, the kids just played with O’s toys. For the most part a successful, party. Although when everyone got a little too hopped up on sugar and had a hard time sharing, we may or may not have turned on an episode of Fireman Sam on Netflix…

I have a few other fun Caterpillar related projects coming up soon including how to make the cute birthday shirt O is wearing, so stay tuned!

Happy 3rd Birthday O!!!

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Cassie May

Craft and Knitwear Designer at Little Red Window Design

Welcome to Little Red Window! I’m Cassie, a professional craft and knitwear designer working in the field for more than 10 years. I have a degree in Art History from Northwestern University and a Master's Degree in Architecture and Design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I've designed more than 300 separate knitting patterns, hundreds of craft projects, and I love to bring joy to your crafts and knitting with well-designed, easy to understand tutorials and patterns.

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