Planning

For some reason, we start out life thinking bugs are cool, not terrified by any but the creepiest spider - willing to get close to, even touch the creepy crawlies that most of us later learn to fear.  So, while the enchantment lasts, this is actually a pretty cool party for the biologist in each of us!  It's colorful, interesting, and there are a lot of opportunities for nature science!

What is your "Party Picture"?

• This theme is inspired by the bugs in your environment - they are colorful, full of movement, and exciting.  From the most adorable red and black lady bug, to the rainbows etched on butterfly wings, or the irradescent shimmer on the wings of beatles!  Any color you want you can find in the palate of Mother Nature.
• Note, this theme would go well with a young scientist party, or, for little girls, consider combining it with a garden tea party! 

• This theme can really be enhanced by some internet research.  You'll find the most amazing pictures to inspire your own creativity. 
• This party can be taken to the Botanical Gardens, a Butterfly House or Insect Zoo in your area or an outdoor area where the children can go on a nature walk to find and discover all of the wonders living in their own back yards!

 

Invitations

Communicating with your Guests

Not all of your guests (or their parents) will be enthralled with the bugs that inspire wonder in your little naturalist.  So try to keep the invitation from reflecting the most creepiest of the creepy crawlers.  Down play it just a little so that you don't lose any of the guests who may be a little faint of heart!

• Invitations:
• Thank You Notes:

Invitations	Thank You Notes
Title Name State	Title Name State

 

Dress It Up

Usually with themes we can narrow your target down to a few obvious colors, but with Bugs, there are unlimited options!  Select two or three colors as your primary colors and then add in a little.  If you work with a few main colors it will keep your décor looking coordinated and cohesive and present a sense of chaos.  There should probably be Green as a base color, because it inspires the feeling of nature - and then highlight your bus of choice throughout your space.  Use all of your surfaces, just as you would find outdoors - some bugs live on the ground, others on vertical surfaces, then there are the flying wonders to create a three dimensional party space. 

Decorations

• Natural Wonder:  Create a backdrop of the environment you are inspired by - is it a wide open field, a soft wooded area, or a hot, vibrant jungle?  Let your bugs be the highlights - don't surround your guests with bugs everywhere, rather, surround them with the environment then tuck your bugs here and there. 

Tablescapes

• Giant Beetle Centerpiece:  Cut a watermelon lengthwise in half and scoop out watermelon fruit out of both sides using a melon-baller.  Replace with watermelon, canteloupe and honeydew balls, strawberries etc.  (don't overfill, just come up to the edge).  Take one half and cut lengthwise again (leaving you with the original long half, and two narrow long quarters) and attach the two quarters, starting together on one end and then slightly splaying outward towards the other end (so that they touch on one end, but are about 3 - 4 inches apart at the other end).  Use wooden skewers to hold them in place.  Add a little more fruit in the exposed area so that it mounds over between the "wings".  Attach an orange at the front with a wooden skewer and use 6 bananas coming down from midway up the watermelon to arc down and touch the table (attach with skewers) as the legs.  Use two skewers with strawberries on the end as antennae and you have a colorful, edible beetle as your centerpiece!  A great dip for fresh fruit is one large jar of Marshmellow Fluff mixed (medium speed for one minute) with 1 package of light cream cheese.  You can add a dash of maraschino cherry juice for pink color and a cherry flavoring! 
  

Decorations	Tablescapes
Title Name State	Title Name State

 

Food/Drink

Be careful with refreshments - you could take this theme a little toooooo far and end up with guests with very little appetite!  You can work some bug fun into your food, but don't take it from fun and quirky over to the side of GROSS. 

Food

• Caterpillar Kebabs:  Colorful fun fruit on a stick with chow mein noodles as "legs"!  Healthy, tasty and looks so fun!  Use grapes, ripe melon balls, banana chunks, strawberries, etc. on popsicle sticks.  Insert the noodles into sides of the softer fruit to form legs and antennae. 
• Giant Beetle Centerpiece:  Cut a watermelon lengthwise in half and scoop out watermelon fruit out of both sides using a melon-baller.  Replace with watermelon, canteloupe and honeydew balls, strawberries etc.  (don't overfill, just come up to the edge).  Take one half and cut lengthwise again (leaving you with the original long half, and two narrow long quarters) and attach the two quarters, starting together on one end and then slightly splaying outward towards the other end (so that they touch on one end, but are about 3 - 4 inches apart at the other end).  Use wooden skewers to hold them in place.  Add a little more fruit in the exposed area so that it mounds over between the "wings".  Attach an orange at the front with a wooden skewer and use 6 bananas coming down from midway up the watermelon to arc down and touch the table (attach with skewers) as the legs.  Use two skewers with strawberries on the end as antennae and you have a colorful, edible beatle as your centerpiece!  A great dip for fresh fruit is one large jar of Marshmellow Fluff mixed (medium speed for one minute) with 1 package of light cream cheese.  You can add a dash of maraschino cherry juice for pink color and a cherry flavoring! 
• Ants on a Log:  This simple party snack is sure to please (just ensure there are no peanut allergies!)  Take celery cleaned and cut into 5" lengths and fill with peanut butter (an alternative would be light cream cheese).  Put raisins (ants) on top in an uneven pattern. 

Beverages

Food	Beverages
Title Name State	Title Name State

 

Cake

Cakes and Desserts

• Garden Pot Dirt Cake:  This take on a trifle will leave kids loving your creepy crawly flower pot and begging for more!  Get a new, clean terra cotta flower pot (8") and line it with 3 layers of saran wrap, leaving about 2 inches of saran over the rim of the pot. 
• You will need 1 package of instant chocolate pudding mix (prepared and chilled), 16-20 ounces of Oreo cookies (crushed) , 1/2 cup melted butter, gummy candy bugs and worms, 12 ounce whipped topping and 8 ounces of cream cheese.
• Separate one cup of the crushed Oreos, and pour the melted 1/2 cup of butter over the remainder.  Press this mixture into the bottom of your line flower pot.  Add some gummy worms and bugs.  Stir half of whipped topping and all of the cream cheese together then spoon on top of the cookie layer (if you want this to be brown and soil like as well, mix in some Hershey's syrup!  Next is the layer of chocolate pudding with a few more gummies and worms mixed in.  Finish off with the rest of the whipped topping, gummies, then cover with the remainder of the Oreo cookies so that the entire concoction looks like dirt in a flower pot.  Add some silk flowers and voila!  Chill and serve.
• Lady Bug Birthday Cake (or Beetle Cake):  Use a dome form to make your cake (any flavor cake works for this!) as well as a batch of cup cakes.  The dome cake will be the body of your lady bug and a cupcake will be the head (use remaining cupcakes for Cobweb cakes).  Tint white frosting red and frost cake and tint white frosting black for the cupcake "head".  Add small round chocolate mints or Oreo cookies as the ladybug's spots and gumdrops for eyes.  Use licorice for eyelashes, mouth and antennae.  This cake can also be any sort of Beetle as well!     
• Cobweb Cakes:  Make your favorite cupcakes and frost with a light color.  Use black decorator gel to create a spider web design on each cupcake.  Add a small black plastic or candy spider and you're done.

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Entertainment

Natural Wonder is the key to this party - have your entertainment and activities inspired by nature, and the bugs that inhabit it!  What can bugs do?  How do they live?  Engage your guests in activities that are inspired by the lives of bugs, and perhaps help the guests discover how to be study the world around them. 

• Entertainers: 

Activities

• Be your Own Bug (A/C):  Have T-shirts in every color, as well as fabric paints and pens.  Let the guests add their own buggy designs - wings, spots, stripes, etc. to their T-shirt representing their favorite bug.  Have pictures of bugs at the craft table to add inspiration!
• Bug Creations (A/C):  Supply guests with walnut shells, pompoms, clothes pins, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, netting, colorful paper, paints, glitter, scissors, tape and glue to make bugs of their own.
• Bug Hunt:  Hide small plastic bugs (be careful of choking hazards for younger guests) throughout your party space and let your kids loose with a "jar" to fill!  
• Ladybug Discovery:  Live ladybugs can be purchased (typically they are intended for gardeners who want these cute little bugs in their gardens because they eat bad bugs that like to nibble on vegetables) and put in a ladybug "lodge" (check the internet or your local nursery).  You can have the children observe the ladybugs in their environment, even have some in baby food jars with holes in the lids for closer inspection.  Have a water soaked raisin to feed the ladybugs while they are in captivity (keep them in a cool area release them early in the morning or late in the day). 
• Caterpillar Catch:  Form the children into a line (a caterpillar) with one player as the head and another as the end - all of the other children are the body.  Tie a scarf around the child at the end of the caterpillar, leaving at least a foot of excess fabric trailing behind (tie it so that it's loose around the child's waist sot that if it's tugged hard the child won't be injured).  Each child will hold the waist of the child in front of them and the goal of the game is for the child playing the head to catch the scarf.  The caterpillar body will twist and turn but cannot break.  The child wearing the scarf should avoid being caught.  Once caught, the end becomes the head, and everyone else shifts back one spot before playing again.
• June Bug Jump: (Derivative of Musical Chairs) Cut out bugs from construction paper (about 12" in diameter).  Using double sided tape, attach the bugs to the floor, forming a circle (one per child).  When the music begins, ask kids to jump from spot to spot (remove one spot as the children are jumping) and when the music stops, everyone must try to land on a spot.  Continue until everyone is out!  As children are eliminated, make it a game for them as well - cheering on the remaining kids by buzzing or making various bug noises!

• Ladybug Costume	Ladybug 18" Pinata
  	Butterfly 21" Pinata

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Prizes / Favors

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