Caterpillar Countdown- Tuesday

 

Dear Diary,

 

It’s day 2 of party planning!  I created a Very Hungry Caterpillar board on my Pinterest page and collected ideas online.

 

On Tuesday, I asked Erica to design decorations.

 

hat2

 

 

As you see from Erica’s page, she doesn’t charge an arm and a leg to create caterpillars.  Since she just opened up Pickles & Pinwheels, she told me she could create almost anything I wanted even if it’s not in her shop.  I asked her to make centerpieces, party hats, party blowers and place mats.  I later sent Erica an email, and she created a birthday banner as well as a Grow With Me Caterpillar —each circle of the caterpillar’s body has a picture of my daughter for each month she has been on the earth.

 

Very Extravagant: Order the items on Etsy or the Eric Carle Museum gift shop.  The online store sells hats, horns and other decorations.

 

Place setting

 

Very Affordable

 

Create menus on your computer.  I typed up a Caterpillar Cuisine menu, printed it on white card stock paper, punched a hole in the corner–bought  a butterfly hole puncher at Michael’s–and tied ribbon through the hole. Since the museum’s menu includes pizza, chicken nuggets or hot dogs, I made sure to get goodies for the guests under one.  I stuck to the theme and bought Apple Harvest Wagon Wheels & strawberry yogurt melts for appetizers, Apple & Pear and Apple & Sweet Potato Fruit Squeezables for the main course and apple & pear 100% juice for the beverages.  All of those Gerber graduate items were purchased in bulk at Sam’s Club. I also used the butterfly puncher to make confetti. Well, technically I paid my 9-year-old nephew in candy to fill the zip loc bag with paper butterflies.

 

Food Collage

 

Erica made face pieces for the balloons. The Children’s Museum package comes with free helium latex balloons to make a caterpillar.  You just need to buy a red balloon for the head, green balloons for the body and ribbon. All of those items I picked up at the Dollar Tree.  You can cut out the eyes, ears and nose from green, yellow and purple card stock paper.   I also bought lots of goodies to stuff the favor bags at the Dollar Tree, such as mini butterfly hair clips and bottles of bubbles in the shape of ice cream cones.

 

treatbags

 

But I was still hungry to plan more.  

About The Author

Vlog Mom/DFTM Creator

Not long ago, Heather Hopson hosted a television show in the Cayman Islands. Today, she's back home writing a different kind of story as a new mom. In her 15 years working as a professional journalist, this by far is her best assignment! Growing up, she dreamed of becoming Oprah Winfrey. She was the features editor for her school’s newspaper and a teen talk show host for her city’s most popular radio station. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Michigan State University. After graduation, she worked as a television producer and reporter at CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates throughout the U.S. Instead of heading to Chicago to join Ms. Winfrey on her set, she bought a plane ticket to the Cayman Islands instead. She arrived five days before a category five hurricane! She lived in paradise for seven years, hosted an award-winning television show and traveled the globe with a government delegation. She also served on the board of directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters and spearheaded a Send a Kid to Camp campaign. Then, she relocated to Washington, D.C. to obtain a teaching certification and instruct 8th grade reading at a high needs middle school. She later returned to her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA to raise her daughter Caitlynn, now 4-years-old. During her 10-month-stint as a stay-at-home mom, Caitlynn inspired her to create this blog, and Diary of a First Time Mom was born on Mother’s Day 2012. Two years later, she expanded the family to include 20+ writers. Currently, Heather serves as the communications director at Allies for Children. In addition, she is the owner of Motor Mouth Multimedia, which ranked #49 in Startup Nation’s Home-Based 100 Competition sponsored by Discover Card and Sam’s Club. Recently, The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowments selected Heather to receive an Emerging Black Artist award to develop Diary of a First Time Mom.

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