There is nothing like putting together a birthday party. I'm pretty sure I have a love/hate relationship with
Pinterest. There are so many great ideas, but on the other hand I then have so many great ideas that I feel I should do. Parties become much bigger projects this way. EMan's train themed birthday party was just such an event. Starting with talking to 3 different stores asking them for large cardboard boxes. The delivery person at Lowe's became most appreciated when he called me back and said he'd put aside a refrigerator box, washing machine box, and dryer box for me. Hurray!
We got to work on Thursday afternoon building a kid size cardboard train. With some tape and a box cutter it actually looked awesome.
When I was at Lowe's I stopped by their "Oops" paint section and found a gallon of blue paint (exterior paint with primer) for $5 - score!
EMan and CJ had the job of painting the train and boy did they love it!
I created a few
{free} printables to go along with our party. Most of them were food related (pictures below) but one of the favorite toys of the party were these signs. I printed them on cardstock and then taped them to 5 gallon paint sticks (also obtained from Lowe's for free, you just have to ask!).
Before the party I used some green and yellow duct tape to accent the train. When the party started we passed around paint smocks and let the kids add decorations to the train.
I LOVE this shirt that I ordered from
Cantaloupe Corner, it is so adorable!
I also had red
bandannas and
conductor hats for the kids.
We had a gluten free dinner table and a regular dinner table. I printed and laminated the
printables and then taped them to the side of
Ziploc containers that held the food.
I did the same for the regular dinner train.
EMan loved his cake! I don't have pictures of the cake, one of my friends took pictures for us and I've yet to get the pictures from her. I'll post them later.
The kids LOVED mixing their own drinks. I used Sprite in 3 different containers. I added food coloring to make one red, one yellow and one blue. This little friend came to me and said, "CJ taught me how to make green! I put in yellow and blue!" It's such a fun learning activity to do drinks this way. (I've also done the same activity with just water and it works just as well with much less sugar.)
I think this picture sums up how awesome of a birthday party it was:
I am so excited that you had a train party first, I'm going to attempt many of these ideas, maybe even the train. I've downloaded the printables and am getting very excited for our party. I really hope you guys will be able to come.
ReplyDeleteI may have responded via email, or perhaps I just responded in my head :P Either way - you can borrow the signs that I used. I still have them and some extra hats and bandannas if you like :) I can't wait to see what you do!
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