Melisa from the ultra-creative Little Apple Design and Project Nursery sent in this adorable party she created for her son’s 3rd birthday that features a Thomas the Train theme with a modern, updated twist. This is such a great example of how you can “style up” any sort of theme to fit your own personal taste!

(Added bonus: – find free printables of the candy buffet labels below!)

Read on for all the details and LOTS more pics, as told by Melisa…

“My son Austin’s obsession with Thomas The Tank Engine is going on 2 years now and before he grows out of it, I just had to throw him a Thomas & Friends party! The decorator in me, however, couldn’t bare to use the commercial cartoon Thomas. Don’t get me wrong – he’s really cute – I just thought he could use an updated, modern twist.

With a brand new baby, I really didn’t have the energy to creatively pull together a birthday bash, so I turned to my party inspiration board guru and contributor, Kelly from WH Hostess. She took my idea, ran with it and pulled together an AMAZING Modern Train inspiration board that I could follow in just a short amount of time.

Kelly also created all the crafty party details – from logos to stickers to banners and much more.

I set the tone of the party with custom paper invites for close friends and family and saved money with free personalized online invitations by Pingg for my son’s preschool class.

The menu consisted of gourmet sandwiches, crust-less cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for the kids, mac & cheese squares, Chinese chicken salad in takeout containers, logo cups filled with baby carrots, snow peas and individual hummus disks.

Some of my favorite decorative touches included the use of 3 foot balloons for a modern statement and simple centerpieces that consisted of of  eco-friendly blumebox vases, shredded tissue paper and clever signs on a stick.

A major party hiccup was the sugar cookies from the bakery. My husband picked them up the morning of the party and they looked absolutely awful! Thank goodness I took a cue from The TomKatStudio’s Blog and ordered fondant cupcake toppers from etsy shop Two Sugar Babies, which saved the day!

Charynn did an incredible job of creating monogrammed fondant toppers and even a 3D train to spruce up my inexpensive yet tasty chocolate Costco cake – as requested by the birthday boy himself!

The big hit of the party was the trackless train that rolled through the neighborhood.

We passed out engineer hats and whistles as the kids boarded Austin’s party train. The children brought them home along with Thomas tattoos, coloring paper, homemade train shaped crayons and bags FULL of candy. Heck, someone had to take the 28lbs of candy display ordered from the Sweet Factory off my hands and far, far away from my house!”

Thanks again to Melisa for sharing this party with us – and to Kelly for offering up free printables of her candy bar labels!

You can download the exact labels (with the candy titles) or blank versions of them below:

• Click here to download labels with candy names
• Click here to download blank labels

ENJOY!