Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Shirt

My youngest son turned one in June and because I think themes are fun, he had a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party. I wanted to make a special shirt for the occasion so I figured out a plan and set to work. A neon green tank top purchased for just a few dollars at Walmart made a cool base and I appliquéd a caterpillar and number 1. 

I didn't want to use a solid colored fabric for the body of the caterpillar since Eric Carle's collages are much more interesting than that. I thought that painting directly on the fabric might not give me the look I was after. Instead, I made applied acrylic paint to my 8x10 inch gelli plate making sure to leave visible brushstrokes. I accidentally purchased fusible interfacing instead of the fusible webbing I wanted for my appliqué project, but the interfacing added some stability to the fabric and made it super easy to print on.

 I think the Very Hungry Caterpillar shirt turned out really cute, despite the fuzzy edges from me buying the wrong product. I would like to get some textile paint or medium and explore gelli printing on fabric more in the future.

On Birthday Parties and Problem Solving

I'm a firm believer that art allows you to practice problem solving skills that will aid you in other areas of life- like planning birthday parties! My 3 year old is all about diggers so it became the theme for his birthday party after Thanksgiving. I knew I wanted to make little diggers working on his cake. I found some CAT cranes, dump trucks, etc. at the Dollar Tree, bought some "choco rocks" at Hobby Lobby, and picked out a cake and frosting recipe. I had never tested the recipes before... The frosting recipe did not make as much as I thought it would and I was out of cocoa powder so couldn't make more. That's when the problem solving kicked in! I put the frosting on roughly and decided to stick the choco rocks in between the two cake layers. That made it look intentional and sort of like digging through the different layers of earth. The cake did start to dry out just a bit where it wasn't covered with frosting, but we had a cool cake, (and I learned to use tested recipes for parties!)

This is how you handle running out of time to clean everything before a construction birthday party!

This was my other creative solution. I spent a good chunk of the day cleaning and organizing and at a certain point it became obvious that I was just not going to get everything done. This part of the kitchen counter is my biggest problem area where I tend to put things I don't know what to do with. I had picked up yellow and black streamers and figured I might as well have a sense of humor about it. Our guests got a kick out of the caution- construction site!