Honeybee Themed 1st Birthday Party

This past weekend we celebrated our littlest cutie's 1st "bee day"! I love planning any kind of party, especially one with a fun theme. For Aidan's birthday we went with "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", so I kind of wanted to go with another Eric Carle book for Jocie's party. I found one of his books called "The Honeybee and the Robber", and it was so cute! Slovenia is really into beekeeping, so it just seemed like the perfect choice.

Here are some snapshots from the sweet day:

Food/Treats:

- Danish Lagkage - I decorated the cake with peaches, nectarines, apricots, mangoes and blueberries. Then I added a few fondant flowers and candy bees. I made the cake in a smaller pan, so it made 4 layers. I used a round cookie cutter to cut out three smaller circles and made Jocie a mini version of the cake. It worked out perfectly!

- Sugar Cookies - I bought cookie cutters from Ann Clark. I used the beehive one for the cookies. I decorated them with royal icing, candy bees and flowers. If you plan on making these, I suggest watching a tutorial on youtube, it was a big help.

- Sandwiches - My mom helped by using a hexagon shaped cutter to cut out sandwiches. Then my dad cut bees out of bell peppers. It looked so adorable!

- Melon Flowers - We cut flowers out of melons, put them on kebab sticks, and topped them with blueberries. So cute!

- Oreos - my parents brought back these Oreos from the States that have yellow filling.

- Cereal - we had some flower shaped cereal (Honeycombs would work well too). Perfect for a party for babies!

- Food pouches - another great addition for a baby party!

- Lemonade - we added some of the cut up fruit left over from the cake to it.

Decor/Other stuff :):

- We used sunflowers and craspedia (billy balls) for flowers.

- We found the bee lights at IKEA.

- The banner is from Amazon.

- Jocie's super cute dress from her grandparents is from Mini Mioche.

A Very Hungry Caterpillar 1st Birthday Party

I like parties.  I love birthday parties.  I ADORE themed parties.

So, when Aidan's first birthday rolled around, there was no question in my mind - we were having a Very Hungry Caterpillar party!!!

I'm going to let you in on all the secrets.

Thankfully, the Very Hungry Caterpillar is a very colorful book.

The primary colors in it though are red and green.  So, that's what we went with.

Invitation:

Decor/Serveware:

- Fiesta wear dishes

- Little red and green tongs at Hobby Lobby

- A Very Hungry Caterpillar twist toy for the cake topper from amazon.com

- Very Hungry Caterpillar Napkins from carlemuseum.org

- Very Hungry Caterpillar book

- Food labels

- Water labels

- Juice boxes

- Red and green paper plates

- Red and green plastic utensils

- Lollipops

- Cupcake liners

- Paper grass

- Number "1" birthday candle

Food/Cake:

- Tie-dye cake mixes, white frosting (for the smash cake)

- Vanilla and chocolate cake mixes

- White frosting

- Red food coloring

- Green food coloring

- Apples

- Watermelons

- Strawberries

- Meat and cheese

- Butterfly shaped crackers

Favors:

- Dollar store bug catchers

- Gummy worms

- Bubbles

- Caterpillar party hats (made out of construction paper)

I made Aidan's tie-dye smash cake.  It looked so cool!  I layered them, and frosted the cake white.  Not my greatest work, but not too bad.

For everyone else, I made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.

I dyed the frosting, and frosted the cupcakes.  Later on, I set them up to resemble the caterpillar.

On the way to the party space, the frosting on the cupcakes didn't hold up too well, but you'll see how it all turned out...

We had Aidan's party at one of my favorite spots here in Jacksonville.  It's an indoor play space called Bay n Bee.  It's so kid-friendly, and they are super helpful!  Everyone loved it, and it was great not having to worry about tear-down/clean up.  I would recommend them to anyone looking for a safe, fun and exciting place for a birthday party.

When the kids started arriving, they each got a Caterpillar party hat.  For the Caterpillar party hats, I took one piece of red construction paper, cut it in half long-ways, and stapled them together.  I cut out eyes and antennas, and glued them on.

For the favors, we bought dollar store bug catchers, put paper grass in the bottom, put in a few gummy worms, a little bottle of bubbles...

The table was set up adorably!

We also had the food table looking adorable.

We ended up having an amazing time, and even though he will never remember it, Aidan had a great time too!