A Hungry Caterpillar Birthday

Planning parties is a huge love of mine. As a matter of fact, it was a childhood dream to run my very own event planning company. As an eight or nine year-old, I set up a home office (some paper and a defunct rotary phone stashed in my roll-top desk) and had a client list (cut out men and women, complete with created biographies, from my mom's JCPenney catalogue). I would pick a client at random, hold a complete imaginary dialogue with him/her about their party needs, and then spend hours in my room creating that party on paper. I even had my mom buy me invoices at an office supply store so I could bill my pretend clients.

Because I'm better at planning parties than naming companies, my thriving business was called Parties Incorporated. And, if I remember correctly, every party seemed to feature an unnecessary number of balloon bouquets -- but this was the 80s after all, what self-respecting high school reunion or wedding reception didn't have balloons?

We all know now that my party planning future remained relegated to JCPenney models glued to notebook paper and fake conversations with myself demanding cheaper prices with my "caterer" for shrimp cocktail. I went in a different occupational direction. (If given the opportunity to ever resurrect Parties Incorporated, I think I would.) But even if I'm not diagramming a ballroom for someone's 30th birthday bash -- with balloons, of course -- I do get to exercise some creativity when it comes to Elliott's parties.

The Internet was a great source for me while I was planning Elliott's first birthday party. I stole a lot of great ideas from others, so I figured I should put my own party out there for people to steal from too. (Of course, the Internet was not available to Parties Incorporated.) Once I decided on a theme, the rest was great fun. Our theme: Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." At the time, I couldn't find any commercial products to support this party theme. NOW Target sells an entire party-line with Carle designs. And you can buy them here too. I'd like to believe that means I was staying one step ahead of the trend. But I realize this is just wishful thinking.

All great parties start with an invitation. I made mine using the InDesign program at school. Yeah, I'll admit it: While my newspaper students worked late one night on an issue of the paper, I was diligently crafting an invite to my son's birthday party. I emailed myself the PDF and then printed it on heavy cardstock.

The best touch? I bought a tiny hole-punch and punched a hole in the food. Just like in the book. Too much fun. Address labels I made myself and then I had envelope seals too -- I tried to make stickers myself, unsuccessfully. So, I broke down and outsourced this job to the Party Mommas over at eBay.

My favorite craft for the whole party was Elliott's birthday banner:

I did have feet made for the bottom banner, but I forgot to glue them on before the party. Not only did I love the visual progression of Elliott's growth that first year, but the banner was bright and fun. (The letters for the top banner are these awesome stickers that I got at JoAnn's Fabrics - they are thick and sturdy.)

The table was also a lot of fun. I made the table cloth by sewing different parts of the available Hungry Caterpillar fabric to a cheap twin flat sheet. You can buy the fabric here; but I found mine at the local Mill End Store. We put the book on display and had all of our guests sign it before they left -- a great gift for Elliott for years to come! We served food that appears in the book (I was in the stages of putting the food out when the picture was taken) and the centerpiece was made by my mother-in-law with the two plush toys featuring the caterpillar and the butterfly and fruits featured in the book.

Some of my other crafts for this party:

- Elliott's bib -- I used Hungry Caterpillar fabric that I purchased from The Mill End Store and used Homemade by Jill's baby bib tutorial that you can find here: Homemade by Jill Bib Tutorial. I used scrap red fabric to spell "ONE" on to the front. 

- High Chair cover -- Also using a different Hungry Caterpillar fabric, I covered Elliott's non-themed fabric cover with a new one. The tutorial can be found over at Make it and Love it: Recovered High Chair Tutorial. Mine was designed to slip over the original fabric since I didn't want to make his high chair permanently covered and it didn't fit too well. But it served its purpose. 

- Thank you gift bags. I used the same fabric as the high chair cover and made little bags -- easiest thing in the world. Printed off "Thank you for coming!" tags and filled them with party favors: Bubbles, candy, and miniature games that I found for a total steal at RideAid. 

- Craft table for the kids -- I stole the crayon bouquet idea from Real Simple. The art teacher at school painted it red for me during his prep one day. Pretty awesome of him to do that. Then I printed off pages from a Hungry Caterpillar coloring book and we made a caterpillar maze to solve too. It was pretty amazing how quickly the older kids made a bee-line to the crayons. 

Of course, the cake was also pretty amazing. My mom's friend Debbie made the cake; she even helped make a few of my childhood birthday cakes, so it was a special treat to have her make Elliott's cake. I emailed her a picture of a cake I found on someone else's blog and she replicated it perfectly. It was almost too wonderful to eat...but that didn't stop anybody.

Tomorrow: Sesame Street second birthday!