Hungry Caterpillar 1yr - Balloon Caterpillars

For my son's first birthday party I decided to do a Hungry Caterpillar theme based upon the Eric Carle book.   

INVITATIONS:  For the invitations I used light blue cardstock and bought light green, kelly green and red adhesive foam.  I cut out ovals of the greens and a big red circle for the head of the caterpillar.  I stuck 4 of each green color alternating together and then put the red head on to make a caterpillar.  I used small googly eyes and black pipe cleaner for the antenna and legs. 

I typed up the following and printed it out and glued it to each invitation:  You're Invited to SON'S NAME 1st Birthday Party!!!  Date:  July 2005  Infestation Time:  12-2 Crawl on over to:  OUR ADDRESS.  Then I printed out an apple with the quote On Monday he ate one apple and put that on one side of the invitation and then put the quote but he was still hungry on the other side.  Then I used a hole punch to punch a hole through the apple like the book. 

DECORATIONS:  I bought two different colored green balloons and a pack of red ones.  We made 3 big caterpillars on the wall using these balloons.  I alternated the greens and then the red one was the head.  I taped black pipe cleaners onto the balloons as antenna and feet.  In the front yard I made a gigantic caterpillar using giant balls from Wal-Mart. 

I bought 4 light green, 4 kelly green and one red ball and duct taped them together.  I wrote the name of each child attending the party on a ball and this was their's to take home with them!  I drew a face on the red ball and wrote Happy Birthday on it and my son kept the red one. 

ACTIVITIES:  Since they were mostly all 1-year olds I kept the activities very unstructured.  We had a caterpillar tunnel (found at Target) in the front yard along with a swingset and a few ride-on toys.   

FOOD:  It was during lunchtime so we served wraps (veggie, turkey and roast beef), potato salad, and watermelon.  I made cheese quesadillas for the kids.  We used light green, dark green and red napkins and plates (I threw in some yellow silverware so it didn't look to Christmas-y) and I used a hole punch to punch a hole in every single plate and napkin (to go with the book theme). 

CAKE:  I made a cupcake-cake!  I used green cupcake liners and made 70 cupcakes.  I iced 16 of them red, 27 a light green and 27 a kelly green.  I taped together several cake boards and arranged the cupcakes to look like a caterpillar.  I used 9 of one color to make an oval and then put 9 of the other green color next to it. 

The caterpillar had 6 green segments and then the big red head (I used 16 cupcakes to make the head larger).  I stuck pipe cleaners into the head for antenna and used black and white frosting to make legs, eyes, mouth, etc.  This cake was about 6 feet long but it was a big hit!  For my son's first birthday cake I made a miniature replica of the large cake using a mini-muffin tin for the cupcakes. 

GOODY BAG:  The goody bags were in green lunch bags decorated with butterfly stickers (since The Hungry Caterpillar was now a beautiful butterfly!) and contained animal crackers, personalized sippy cups, stickers, bath capsules, and a few other trinkets from a Dollar Store.