{Critters and Flitters} Double Party

I had a dilemma.  

My son, Tot,  was turning one ... an occasion we like to celebrate in a big way, but my daughter's 3rd birthday was only 5 days after his.  Poppy had been all about birthdays from the day she had a birthday cake and candles to blow out when she turned two. 

So really the decision wasn't too hard. I'd throw a double party. Since neither of them were really 'into' anything in particular, I chose a theme that I thought would be fun and easy to include both boy and girl aspects.

Critters and Flitters

Critters for the boy:: caterpillars, beetles, ants, spiders etc.

Flitters for the girl:: butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs etc.

Naturally we had to have one cake for each child ... 

I went with a simple #1 cake with a caterpillar crawling on the top for Tot. 

The icing on the #1 was chocolate with chocolate cookie chunks in it to simulate dirt.

A butterfly was the obvious choice for Poppy's cake.  

I used a paper template to cut out the cake and again to make the wing design with the sugar crystals.

TIP: SCRAPBOOK PAPER ON TOP OF A PLAIN WHITE CAKE BOARD, OR A PIECE OF AN OLD CARDBOARD BOX, COVERED IN CLEAR CELLOPHANE MAKES FOR A UNIQUE BACKGROUND FOR YOUR CAKE.  CHOOSE YOUR PAPER TO GO WITH YOUR THEME 


We had a wide age range of guests at the party so we tried to have activities to suit them all.  Here are the three 'theme related' activities.

Stand alone activity: Guess how many worms are in the jar

Group activity:  Bug hunt, each guest had a labeled jar and searched the garden for 3 hidden bugs each

 TIP:  BUG HUNT JARS WERE CREATED FROM OLD BABY FOOD JARS SAVED FROM TOT'S MUSHED UP FOOD DAYS.

Independent Activity:  Supplies were set out for our guests to make their own bug creations.

TIP: OLD EGG CARTONS, CUT UP INTO SECTIONS OF 1, 2 OR 3 MAKE GREAT BASES FOR A WIDE VARIETY OF CRITTERS

I had fun keeping with theme for some of the party food.

All guests, young and old seemed to take great delight in the 'Build-a-Bug: Snack' table.  We made an idea-starter display and provided all the ingredients for them to make their own!  It served two purposes, an activity and a tummy filler!

Build-A-Bug: Snack

The other fun food addition to the critter theme was our gummy worms in green jelly.  This was a fun one to make with Poppy's help. The end result was a little squiggle away from my initial plan.  I carefully curled each worm into place on a baking tray, in neat little rows to enable easy cutting into little squares.  The worms had an idea of their own though once the hot jelly hit them.  They all went NUTS squiggling all over the place and ended up as you can see ... NOT in neat little rows to be cut into neat little squares.  It turned into quite the jigsaw puzzle!  The squeals of glee from Poppy as she watched the worms squirm made this treat even more delightful!

Gummy worm jelly treats

And of course no party is complete with out take home gifts for the guests. 

The little girls in the group took home butterfly wings and the little boys took home a bug mask (not pictured) both purchased at our local "Dollar Tree".

Balloons and butterfly wings

  The balloons were tied onto little cardboard bags that were a perfect vessel for the guests bug jars, filled with their finds from the Bug Hunt activity.

Each guest also chose a critter or flitter cookie to add to their take home bundle.  These were made as an adaptation to the Women's Weekly cupcake idea, but, we already had cake, so I made them into cookies.
A special thanks to Tot's Aussie God-muma for sending all the necessary confectioneries that we can't get here in the US.

Critters and Flitters Cookie assortment

Bug Party

This was my first go at a themed birthday party - being for my gorgeous little man's first ever birthday! To be honest there was heaps more I thought of -than I ended up doing , simply because I was trying to keep it basic since he would not really remember much of it at all! And...being a first time mum I was just concerned about being able to do a kids party at all....and getting that cake that would be forever immortilised in photo's, spot on!!

I wanted this birthday to record Caleb's family and closest friends thoughts on him then and what he might get up to in the future....so I created some cards with bug stickers on them (sooo easy!) to go into a time capsule.

cards for time capsule

I have put them in a small, flat silver tin that at some point I want  to decorate or at least SEAL properly...and keep somewhere safe until his 21st birthday! I picked card in primary colours but obviously to do something similar for another theme it'd be easy to choose colours to suit other themes or even patterned or shaped (ie cupcake or flower etc) cards. Something special to look back on anyway!

This was the cake...."Colin Caterpillar"! Took this idea from The Australian Women's Weekly, Kids' Party Cakes book. Loved making this one! Used the natural food colours to colour the icing ( as opposed to the bright more vibrant ones used in the book. I did this so my baby didn't get an excessive high from all the fake colourings etc) and coconut which is the outer layer of the muffins.  As the caterpillar gets longer, the muffins get 'shaved' down and tapered to the right size and shape. I was really happy with how this turned out....but being my first cake -did take me a while, lol :)

COLIN CATERPILLAR

I made extra cupcakes to supplement the birthday "cake"....and decorated the tops of them with various bugs. Sadly (sniff !) hubby, who was taking the pics, didn't get to taking a picture of the masterpieces before they were all gobbled up!! :( I was so proud of them.....they looked a little like these below (also from the Kids' Party Cakes book)....

 My bug cupcakes were modelled after these ones!

We managed to get one pic of one of the spider ones at least.....!

One of my lovely friends who was a guest, created a caterpillar using rolled up lavash bread (stuffed with lots of yummy chicken and salad) and used cucumber to give the little guy some feet! You can see a similar idea on theWoolworths Fresh Food kids website :) Very easy and super yummy!! Was an effective way to add to the theme without being too complex!

The invite I created....very simple and easy!

I did decorate a little with some pictures I printed off the internet....I had lady bugs, caterpillars, leaves, spiders and bee's- even though they are insects- as it wasn't strictly just a bugs theme! There is a lot more you could do for this theme but it can also be as simple as you need too :)