Manic Mama Miles: Very Hungry Caterpillar Party Decorations

The Very Hungry Caterpillar party had a lot of different components when it came to decorations, as you can see from the (still off-centered) party table below.

I love banners, so I knew I wanted a birthday banner as the centerpiece. I talk more about creating the banners on my Very Hungry Caterpillar banner post, but this banner was just a simple one I designed that resembled the hungry caterpillar & said "Happy Birthday Addy!" I had seen some super cute paper fan ideas for a Very Hungry Caterpillar party on Pinterest, so I borrowed some of those ideas & used some paper fans that I got online at Oriental Trading to resemble the caterpillar & put that above the birthday banner.

For the table itself, I used a plain white tablecloth & then put a white-with-green-polka-dots on it piece of fabric on top of that. I then put a plain piece of green fabric in the center. On the front of the table, I put another banner, this time a photo banner that is pretty similar to the Very Hungry Caterpillar invitations. You can read more about that banner here.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to put on the sides of the banner, but after some debating, I decided to decoupage some canvases that would go with the Very Hungry Caterpillar theme & be birthday themed too. If you Google, there are tons of Very Hungry Caterpillar images/printables/etc.

I found one of the dot background that is the book & the beautiful butterfly that the caterpillar turned into & printed them off, along with a big green "2". I then used Mod Podge to adhese them to the canvas. I just went over the canvas a few times with the Mod Podge, to make sure it looked even.

One of the best places for printables is on the Make It Cozee blog. I found the fruit printable you see on the canvas below there. I made a border all around the edges of the canvas. I found a plain picture of the sun & then used just used Paint on my computer to add in the caterpillar & Addy's name. After I Mod Podged all of this onto the canvas, I didn't love how the lines looked, so I added in a thin strip of red ribbon.

One of the other great things that I found on the Make It Cozee blog were printables for the different foods that the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate, including a description written just like in the book. They were great. I just printed them off, put them on red or green construction paper & either taped them to a toothpick to stick in the food, or made a table tent out of them. They were perfect to describe the food & as part of the decorations.

Other small decorations were a tiny caterpillar & a big butterfly that came with some of the board books & the actual board books themselves. My mom had also found Addy a larger caterpillar that we used on one side & I found a caterpillar block puzzle at a thrift store that i used on the other. I also used red, green & polka dot ribbons on the glass containers the food was in. I found some red caterpillar notepads at the Dollar Tree that were just sprinkled among the table.

One of the other decorations were the boxes that the ice cream cone cupcakes sat in. I started with some colorful polka dotted tissue paper that I thought resembled the colorful dots from the book.

I found some empty envelope boxes that had been tossed in the trash at work & I brought them home with me.

I then used my Mod Podge (which I decided during this party that I absolutely loved) & started decoupaging. I did a couple of layers of white tissue paper first since the box was green. I just coated the box with Mod Podge & added a layer & then another.

I did about 3 layers of white paper & then waited for it to dry. I then started with the colorful tissue paper. I turned the paper backwards because I thought the muted colors gave the boxes more of the look that I was going for.

This is what they looked like in the end after all of the coats of Mod Podge & tissue paper.

After the boxes were complete, I cut (aka I got my husband to cut since he doesn't love when I play with sharp objects) some circles into the boxes for the Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes to sit in. I wasn't sure how the boxes would turn out, but I wound up liking them & besides the few bucks that the Mod Podge (that I used for tons of other projects) & the tissue paper cost, the project was really cheap.

The last thing I did as far as decorating was I hung a clothesline on the opposite side of the tent from the food table. There was a local craft store going out of business a few months before this party & they had this Very Hungry Caterpillar themed bulletin board packet. It was 75% off, so of course I had to have it. I couldn't quite figure out what to do with it, so I just made a clothesline with it. You can also see my sweet Addy girl in her tutu hanging out with my mother-in-law & my friend Ally & her sweet girl Gabriela. Although the decorations were pretty cute, nothing was as cute as sweet Addy girl in her Very Hungry Caterpillar shirt from Rebekah Crisco's Etsy store & her tutu from Christmas & all of her friends at her party.