Vivian created this adorable Choo Choo Train Party for her 3 year old who “absolutely loves anything and everything related to trains”. Besides the incredible felt birthday boy hat pictured above (with stitched on buttons as wheels!), she shares more than a few inspiring kids birthday party ideas below, including indoor/outdoor activities, dessert table decor, & crafty party favors!

PARTY HIGHLIGHTS to look out for:

• AMAZING homemade popsicle stick train holding snacks & sweets on the dessert table
• “Baggage Claim” favor station with a vintage suitcase holding cool muslin favors bags
• Clever train-shaped printable birthday banner
• DIY party hats with tissue fringe

PARTY DETAILS, as told by Vivian…

My boy loves anything and everything train.  So it’s only fitting to have a choo-choo train birthday party to celebrate his turning 3!  There are a lot of commercially available train items available on the market (the big blue engine with 1 on the side, anyone?)  But to make the party fresh and unique, I decided to go for a more organic & vintage look, and ended up making a lot of the party items on my own, including the birthday crown made out of felt.

Dessert Table

The dessert table is anchored by a cheerful train cake made by my talented friend, pastry chef Tiffany L.  In front of it is a wooden train with 3 passenger cars filled with homemade treat pops.  I made the cars with foam & craft sticks and embellished them with mini flags made out of the scrap paper from the party hats (perfect color coordination.).  Simple concept, but I think it’s really functional while making the whole dessert table pop. On the dessert table is also: Choochoo cookies (loco + caboose), Train rice crispy treats, Cake pops, Marshmallow pops, Coconut pudding, Popcorn corns andTrain treat stands (for cake pops, popcorn pops, and marshmallow pops).

Favor Table

The favor table takes inspiration from the baggage claim.  In the center of the table were two suitcases holding the favors.  To create the vintage look, I made the favor bags out of muslin & twine strings.  I handstamped train images on the front of the bags to highlight the theme.  Bubbles symbolized train engine steam and were for the kids to take home.  Party hats were also available on the table for guests to wear at the party and added some pop of color to the whole setup. DIY items on the favor table include: party hats, favor bags and mini pendant flags.

Activities

Since it’s a vintage train party, I want to go back to the basics and choose activities that are simple yet fun.

• Outdoor activities: I made a cardboard loco and attached a play tunnel to it to make it an activity center.  With the smaller cardboard boxes, I made a loco and a few passenger cars for kids to ride in and to run wild.  There are also AngryBird tin game made out of old coke cans, beanbag toss game made out of a shallow cardboard box, railroad drawing on top of yellow frisbee, amongst other fun games.  The kids had a great time
• Indoor activities: I set up an art/crafts table for kids to decorate wooden train ornaments and to color train pages using markers, glitter pens, stickers, crayons, etc. We also had a photo booth. It was soooooo much fun!  I made a lot of photo props off the free printables on the internet, while making the rest on my own.  Kids can choose to dress in conductor’s outfit, holding train signs, or simply pick a random prop to strike a pose.  The models are simply A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E, and we had so much fun being silly in front of the camera.