Who doesn’t love a good kids birthday party? So much fun to be had. My littlest girl recently turned three and it seems she has inherited my indecisiveness. When it came to choosing the theme for her cake (we always start with the cake obviously) it switched between Dora, Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig and finally ended up as The Hungry Caterpillar which I have to say was a seriously good idea.

I tend to get a bit caught up in the whole party idea and have grand plans of elaborate decor and cute party gifts. Pinterest boards are created and then promptly forgotten. I do like to make an effort though mainly as I enjoy doing it as much as anything else. The girls probably don’t really care! For Molly’s birthday last year we had a woodland fairy party and when Alice turned two it was all about a paddling pool party complete with flamingos and pineapples. I’m a bit of a crafter and a baker so I love thinking of ideas. However, I really do try to keep them simple as, let’s be honest, no one really has time for hours spend glittering and gluing when you have little ones. I also like to make things that the girls can get involved with too as that’s half the fun.

When we decided on The Hungry Caterpillar birthday party I was in my element. It is such a fabulous book and so many cute details that you can easily take and incorporate in to the party. I will also tell you that despite my grand plans this was all achieved the day before the party. Nothing like a spot of lastminute.com.

Cake

The reason the cake is my starting point is that I am a bit of a baker. Normally I run out of time to make the girls cakes but this theme was just so much fun I got a bit carried away. The cake was just a triple layer victoria sponge as Alice requested vanilla so vanilla she got. For the decoration I made a cute caterpillar topper and teeny tiny fruits. I then simply cut out some other fruit shapes and little circles to decorate the sides. It is quite possibly one of my favourite cakes to date! I then made some little gluten free salted caramel cupcakes (my brother’s girlfriend is coeliac and I don’t like her to miss out) which the girls helped me add teeny icing fruits to. It all went down a treat.

Cake Table

The cake table is always my favourite (obviously) and the one area that you can go to town on. If you only do one thing at a party then this is it. It’s so easy to make a selection of sweet treats look good. I actually bought a Hungry Caterpillar spotty tablecloth and napkins. Yes, I could have used something else but kids love them and it was nice to tie it all together. I am not against characters for kids, I just try to add to it. I then placed the main cake and cupcakes on cake stands as the centre pieces. We added some other treats in the guise of jaffa cakes (hungry caterpillar likes oranges!) and teeny tiny fab ice lollies (he also likes ice lollies!). Then it was a case of filling in the table with an assortment of fruit which is possibly one of the easiest decorations I have done. I just bought bags of apples, pears and plums which I piled haphazardly around along with slices of watermelon. The benefit of this is that is acted as the healthy balance to the sweet treats!

Decor

I kept the decor simple as we were mainly outside in the garden which is full of leaves anyway! The girls and I popped out in the morning and picked some leaves from the trees and then I attached cotton to make a lovely leaf backdrop. It took about 20 minutes to make but looked so effective. We also bought a few helium balloons in bright colours as every kid loves a balloon.

Games

Although the children were mostly happy to keep themselves amused in the garden I did plan a few different games for them. Trying to get small children to sit and participate in pass the parcel or musical statues isn’t going to happen so these games were designed to keep them entertained but allowing them to do it at their own pace. There were of course choccy prizes awarded.

The first game was my ‘Feed the hungry caterpillar’ concoction. I simply got an old cardboard box and cut a big hole in the front. Then I covered it in coloured paper and added paper eye details. The littles then had to take it in turn to throw the soft toy fruit in to his mouth and the one who got the most in won (or to be honest they all won!).

I devised a little treasure hunt for them which was super easy to make. I cut out fruit shapes from coloured card and hung them around the garden. We did this to match the book so he ate through 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries and 5 oranges. Molly and I then made cards for each child that had the fruit drawn on. The children had to go around the garden and find all the fruit. Kids love a treasure hunt so this went down a storm.

Finally we reinstated a childhood classic of ‘Twister’! To tie it in to the theme I cut out more fruit shapes and stuck these on to the relevant colours. Then we could shout out ‘Right hand strawberry’ or ‘left foot pear’ and so on. Ok, so most of the three year olds don’t know their left and right but they still had lots of fun.

Party Bags

This area was a bit of a fail. I had planned some lovely goodies of wooden toy fruit for the kids but completely forgot and after a quick look around my local shops (read Argos and Wilko) an hour before the party I resorted to plan B. Hungry Caterpillar bags with my traditional party bag fillings of some crayons, craft goodies and a few choccy buttons. I tried to rescue them by tying on a leaf which I hole punched for authentic caterpillar nibbles and wrote their name on.
 
Has anyone got birthday parties coming up. I’d love to hear your plans. Mainly so I can steal your ideas and add them to my party theme list!