If there is one thing my son loves more than food it's definitely trains! So this year for his birthday I decided to do a train themed birthday party - however - I didn't want a licensed or character party so had to avoid the massive range of Thomas the Tank Engine & Chuggington. Because of this, I made all my decorations by myself :)

We'll start off with the biggest decoration of all - the pinata! I made this bad boy with 3 pieces of large poster cardboard, some tissue paper for decoration, masking tape to hold it all together, some string to tie it up with & glue. I miscalculated my measurements so I had to tape some extra cereal boxes lying around to add length & I used a toilet roll for the chimney of the train.

Here is the before decoration & finalized.
For the games we are doing simple ideas because the little ones will all be around the 2-5 year old mark. So we have chosen the pinata & a small game of pass the parcel. I was browsing through the shops the other day searching for pass the parcel goodies that fell into the theme of trains but couldn't find anything I liked that would suit both boys and girls. Just as I was about to leave I came across these pop up books which were on sale for only $1 each! I thought they were perfect but way too heavy for little ones to pass around 15 pop-up board books so I improvised. In each layer of the pass the parcel there is 2 candy rolls & a little note tied around them that reads "Choo Choo Choose A Book! :)" They will then at the end of the game go to the table where the books will be set for them to choose one of the 3 types of pop-up books available.
And below we have his cupcake toppers made with a 2" circle cutter & a sheet of printed circle designs. All you need to do is cut out what you would like on the top of the cupcake then use a hot glue gun (or any sturdy glue) to stick the cut out onto a toothpick or lollypop stick for you to place into the cupcake after you have iced them. Next is a decoration I made to stick into the ground - It is just a train cutout hot glued to some bamboo skewers. And on the end we have the front door sign - something simple, just a paper printout with some ribbon decorations.
Below is the self explanatory stuff - the cups, crayon boxes, colouring in sheets, party hats, the birthday banner & the snack containers.
Finally the take home party favours - I kept it train themed & made a DIY Train Track Candy Bag - It contains 6 m&m's, 2 strips of licorice and 6 chocolate coated licorice bullets. They look like the picture on the left & get set up like the one on the right.
The rest of the party remains a surprise until after the party on the 16th of February. :) There is loads of food fun & decoration ideas to share with you after that! :)