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Monday 9 January 2012

A Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party

Justin turned three on Saturday (where has that time gone?) and I organised a Very Hungry Caterpillar party to celebrate.

As his birthday is straight after Christmas and New Year I have learned over the past two birthdays to get organised early to avoid unnecessary stress and so I started a board on Pinterest some time ago and pinned a few ideas. In reality not many of them made the cut but it was still fun finding out what other people had done.

I got the inspiration for the invitations here but played around with various VHC images and ended up with something that I was really pleased with.

Somehow the numbers at the party snowballed (no pun intended!) and we ended up with eight 2 to 3 year olds, three older 5 and 6 year old siblings, party guest's mums and Justin's grandparents. Thankfully, it was a sunny day and we were able to use the kitchen, conservatory and garden patio. 

I had lots of plans to make VHC bunting but in the end I fell in love with the paper lantern caterpillar idea found here. I hung the lanterns up with thread suspended between two cabinets and fixed some spotty wrapping paper behind to hide a lovely but detracting picture. It was quite effective (although I couldn't get the eyes quite right) but the lanterns were smaller than I expected and in hindsight I didn't think it was worth the extravagant c.£20 it cost to buy them.
There was no real structure to the party, the little ones were allowed to play with toys I'd left out for them but I did include a couple of games for them. We had the obligatory pass-the-parcel and also a great game called Pop the Bubbles. I found these on the Party Pieces website and they are basically rectangles of large bubble bubble wrap that the children have to jump up and down on. Not surprisingly, they all had great fun popping the bubbles. I will definitely do this again but may buy my own roll of large bubble bubble wrap for next time!



I also planned a version of musical statues with printed sheets of numbers: when the music stops you call a number out and the children have to stand on that number. We didn't have time to play this but I might play it with Justin anyway to help him learn what numbers look like.
The party bags were spotty cellophane bags and I put VHC sticker sheets, a VHC pin badge, a small bottle of bubbles, a small packet of sweets and a multi-coloured colouring pencil and VHC colouring sheet in each.
Sadly I forgot to take many photos, and didn't even manage to get one of the table before most of the food had been eaten.
I did manage get a photo of the older children having a great time eating their food outside as a picnic.
The party went smoothly and most importantly all the children had a great time, especially the birthday boy.
© 2012 Nicola Noble

13 comments:

  1. HI I was wondering if you could share how you made the invitations? What program did you use and where did you get the images to use in the invites?? They are soo cute! Thanks! Courtney
    CourtneyScott84@gmail.com

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  2. Hi there - thanks for your kind comment. I created the invitation in Photoshop Elements and used a selection of images I found via a Google image search. I would be happy to send you the image (minus personal details inside) - just let me know at nicola@gweilo.com.

    Cheers

    Nicola

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  3. Hi Nicola! Looks and sounds like the party was a success! Unfortunately, I am not crafty at all. LoL I too was wondering how I could make/get/or print your VHC invitation. I do not have access to Photoshop. I absolutely love the neat design of your invite!! Both creatively neat, as in artistic, and visually neat, as in not cluttered. Job well done! Please let me know. I can be emailed at msmwhite@hotmail.com. Have a great day!

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  4. Thanks for the kind comments on the invitation - it did go through various designs before I ended up with something I liked and, as you said, wasn't cluttered, so your comments are much appreciated. Will e-mail you separately about getting a copy ...

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  5. Looks like a fun time was had by all. I adore your invitations! They are so cute and neat. I was wondering how I would go about making them if I didn't have Photoshop. Did you use a template from the actual card paper, like Avery or did you just create it from scratch? Is it something I could do in MS Word? I would love to make these for my little one and they are so much cuter than the ones you can buy from Eric Carle online. My email is my22junk@hotmail.com. Thanks so much for any help you can give!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your kind comments. I created the invitations from scratch - playing around with the images until I got something I liked, so it is really nice to hear that other people like them too.

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  6. Hi Nicola I have been searching on line for invites for my grandsons first birthday. Love yours, would you be willing to share/sell design
    Maria (mariataylor2@blueyonder.co.uk)

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  7. Hello,
    Your invitation and party are just darling! You are so talented - I wish I cuold do photoshop! Love the clean graphic appeal and the tri-fold design. Would you be willing to share with me? Thank you!
    a2tgog2 at hotmail

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  8. Hi Nicola I have been searching on line for invites for my son's second birthday. Love yours, would you be willing to share/sell design? please feel free to email me at: bryceandchad@aol.com
    thank you
    Ericia

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your kind e-mail. I have mailed you separately with some info x

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  9. Hi Nicola,
    I've also been searching everywhere for a clean, uncomplicated design for my son's first birthday and I am very much interested in using your design. Could you please let me know if you would be willing to share/sell your design? Kind Regards Michelle kyriakidis.michelle@gmail.com

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    Replies
    1. Thank Michelle - I have mailed you about this x

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  10. Hi Nicola,
    I have been searching for a nice invitation for my daughters 1st birthday and your design seems perfect! What do you charge for your design? I can be reached at santosha_acker@msn.com. Regards, Santosha

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