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I'm so glad it's Friday.  

Hope you have a fun long weekend.

Hungry Caterpillar party prep: DIY multicolor crayons

I struggled with what to put in the children's goodie bags.  At first I was going to give them lollipops because that went along with the theme of the book.  But then I remembered that they were already going to get candy after bashing the pinata.  Images of screaming children on candy highs filled my mind, so I went another route:  DIY multicolor crayons.  (It sort of goes with the theme, right?  Colorful crayons.... colorful Eric Carle artwork? Ok...maybe it's a stretch...  Alright, you got me.  I just wanted to try this DIY out and I needed an excuse... )

Anywhoo... here's what I did:

(1)  I found a bunch of old crayons, ripped off their paper covers, and broke them up.

• Note 1:  My mom actually found these crayons at home...so that means they're at least 20 years old... ehhhh.... I think they're still good)  
• Note 2:  I had a tough time ripping off the covers.  So hubby and I ended up using a scissor to slice the paper right off.  Be careful!  I sliced my finger. 
• Note 3:  It was tough breaking crayons.  (Hmm, I sense a theme here.  I should probably go to the gym and work out my arms).  I ended up using my trusty pair of scissors and cutting the crayons up.  You could probably chop the crayons up too.  But I didn't want to get wax on my knives or cutting board.  

(2)  I put the broken crayons into some silicone candy molds.   (I've seen other people using cute ice-cube trays or cupcake trays.)

• Note 1:  You probably don't want to do this with a beloved tray.  The wax stains the silicone.
• Note 2:  I placed the silicone molds on top of a baking dish because I was afraid of spilling melted wax.  I spilled wax anyway...but at least it didn't get onto my floor.

(3)  Place the crayons into a 250 degree oven.  Bake for about 10-15 minutes (depending on how big  your crayon chunks are).  Watch them as they bake.  Take them out when the top layer is liquidy.

(4)  Once melted, take the tray out and let your melted wax cool and harden. (Mine took about 15 minutes to solidify.) 

• Note:  Melted crayons smell bad.  Really bad.  Open a window.  Wear a gas mask.  Do whatever you need to feel ok with this.... I kept reminding myself that crayons are non-toxic....*cough cough*

(5) Once cool, pop those babies out and admire your colorful handiwork.

• Note:  I placed mine in the  freezer for a bit before popping them out.  Some other blogger said to do that, but I don't think I really had to.

Voila!  An army of rainbow crayons ready to color the world!  Muah ha ha ha.

To see other things that we made for the party, click  here

Happy Anniversary!

It was our wedding anniversary a couple of days ago.  We've been married for 7 years.  Wowzers.  We celebrated the big day by going out for dinner... without Baby Chuck! (Thanks Tita Tina for being brave enough to watch our little monster!) 

I love my son, but it was really really REALLY nice to eat dinner without him.

Throughout the night we tried our very best to (a) not talk about Baby Chuck and (b) eat slowly.  Since becoming parents our conversations revolve around our son.  Dinner topics include dissecting his moods, sleep habits, bowel movements (tmi?), and skin.  I'm quite embarrassed by the number of times I start statements with"Baby Chuck did this today...."

Our manners have also seriously slid down the tubes.  We shovel a whole ton of food into our mouths as fast as we can.  Forget about savoring the meals.  Napkins?  Hah!  No time to wipe our mouths. Knives?  Nope.  That's a luxury.  We just use forks (or one hand.).   The other hand is always spooning, mushing, wiping or entertaining baby.  Dinner time is battle time.  Those who follow dinner etiquette starve.  Only the impolite survive.

So it should come as no surprise to you that we really appreciated that alone time.  Maybe we can try this whole date night thing again?  (Anybody interested in babysitting?)



Today I spent some time looking through some old wedding stuff.  I found these messages written by our guests 7 years ago.  (Instead of a guestbook we asked guests to write on paper "leaves" which were then hung on twigs.)  I laughed a whole lot when I saw these.  Some of our guests got really creative...  

Hungry Caterpillar party prep: DIY Photobooth props

So first we made a Number 1 pinata.  Then we made a Hungry Caterpillar themed bingo board.  Now it's time for photobooth props!

I've never seen a real live photobooth before.  But, I've drooled over so many online that I wanted to try the whole activity out too. (Has anyone out there ever used a photobooth?  I think you just provide guests with some props and a nice background, right?)  Anyhoo... I'm lucky enough that Tito Ric has real photography backdrops that we can use.  I'm just providing the Hungry Caterpillar themed props.  Old cereal boxes and cardboard boxes (stolen from our building's garbage pile- yay garbage) were used to create these colorful props.  I painted them with craft paint "Eric Carle" style.  Here's how a couple turned out:

(Note:  I really wanted to take photos of all the props, but hubby reminded me that I should leave some surprise for the guests.  So, you'll have to wait to see all the props later!)

The mask looks like a bunny... but it's meant to be the hungry caterpillar.

 I can't wait to see the kids and their parents playing around with the props.

Hungry Caterpillar party prep: DIY Caterpillar Bingo

Here's my second completed project:  Hungry Caterpillar Bingo

I figured I would need more than a pinata to keep our young guests entertained.  I loved playing Bingo as a kid, so I created these Hungry Caterpillar themed bingo boards.  I placed different images from Eric Carle's book into each square.  Here are 11 different 4x4 Bingo boards that I created:

(Note:  Once again, I am not ashamed to admit that I am a big time copycat.  I used copied images to create my Hungry Caterpillar invite.  This time I copied quite a few of my Bingo images from Patty's blog.  Thank you Patty!)  

Hungry Caterpillar 4x4 Bingo