Luke's 2nd Birthday Party!

My little man, Luke, turned 2 last week! He is really into trains these days, so we decided to have a train birthday party for him last weekend. Lucky for us, our town has a former train depot, so we held the party outside the Cartersville Depot!

Unlike Luke's Dukes of Hazzard 1st birthday party, which I spent a few months planning, I only spent a few weeks planning this budget-friendly party. In fact, after Luke's first birthday, Andy made me promise that we wouldn't have a big 2nd birthday party for Luke. Unfortunately for Andy, during this time I caught the party planning bug and skipping Luke's party was not a possibility. Once I found out that you can rent the Cartersville Depot (amphitheatre/stage area), it was full steam ahead.

I immediately began my search for the perfect invitation to set the tone for the event. A quick search for train parties in my Google Reader led me to this vintage train party, which led me to these amazing vintage train printables from Spaceships and Laser Beams! I ordered the invitations, blank labels, cupcake wrappers, and water bottle labels. Stephanie was a dream to work with and so sweet. In fact, a week after I ordered these items, Spaceships and Laser Beams celebrated their first birthday and had a facebook giveaway, which I obviously entered. I didn't win, BUT as a "little not so random act of kindness", they still offered me any other items from their vintage train collection that I wanted. How cool is that?!? I felt like I was taking advantage of their kindness when I asked for the All Aboard banner, 6 inch party sign, thank you cards, 2 inch party decals, and favor tags.  All of their printables are so cute - I highly recommend Spaceships and Laser Beams for any of your boy party planning needs!



Next it was time to plan the dessert/food table (always my favorite part!).

Before I even thought about what food we were going to have, I determined the layout. Since the party was outside, I didn't want to use a fabric backdrop like normal. Instead, I decided to hang up a "happy birthday" banner. The "happy" is actually the Pennant Banner I bought awhile back (I changed out the ribbon and tied it to fishing wire). To make the "birthday" banner, I cut squares from Jute Webbing, put foam letter stickers on them, and sewed the squares onto double fold extra wide bias tape. Simple, yet cute (and I had all of the supplies on hand)! Next I had to determine what to hang the banners from. Since the table wouldn't be against a wall and I needed something free standing, I put my husband to work. He recently cut down a bunch of branches from a big tree in our yard, so he grabbed a couple and attached them to 2x4 bases. I love the natural feel to it and can use them again!

I used blue/white striped fabric as the tablecloth (to somewhat resemble conductor hats). The picture banner may just be my favorite touch of the entire table. I printed sepia pictures of Luke (one from each month of his life as a 1 year old), attached them to red cardstock, and hung them on twine with mini clothespins. To add to the decor, I also placed a train track around the cupcakes, as well as an antique brass train, LUKE train (on a railroad I made with small square dowels), and a vintage ticket holder on the table.

Finally it was time to think about the food. We decided to have the party from 1-3pm, and made the following snacks and desserts:

• Drinks: Sweet tea and lemonade. Also a variety of juice and pop in a cooler.
• Desserts: Red velvet cake pops, mini donuts, chocolate cupcakes, sprinkle cupcakes, chocolate rolled cookies, and sugar cookies.
• Food: Hawaiian sweet bread ham/turkey sandwiches, cheese slices (cut into mini trains and 2 with cookie cutters), fruit kabobs, pigs in a blanket, ham tortilla rollups, and sausage balls.

  

Favors are always fun to plan too! We brought Luke's cube organizer to hold the favors. They included conductor hats, train whistles, personalized bandanas, train crayons, and water bottles. The kids seemed to really enjoy all of them! I also made a big 2 out of foam board and a lot of twine.

Activities were kept at a minimum since we knew the venue provided enough fun for the kids (watching trains pass by, as well as running around the stage and amphitheatre steps). We did take a bunch of Luke's train toys and laid them out on a blanket for everyone to play with. Luke started out being afraid of the trains but quickly got over it and loved watching them go by with his little friends!

My husband built a cardboard box train (idea found here) which I covered in kraft paper. We then filled a box with markers, colored pencils, train shaped crayons, and stickers (which I made with my Xyron create-a-sticker) that the kids could use to decorate it. As you can tell, they had fun with the train!

I had planned on decorating train sugar cookies to include in the kids' favor bags; however, got lazy when it came to decorating them. That's when it hit me...why not set up a table with edible markers and let the kids decorate their trains themselves! They could then bag them up and put them in their favor bags. I think this is a fun activity that could be incorporated into any party!

Finally, we utilized an old mail cart on the side of the train depot as a sort of photo booth. The plan was to get a picture of each kid with Luke, which I could later send to the parents along with their thank you card.

As far as other decorations, we had two 36" red balloons, which both flew away before the party was over. I made Luke's birthday shirt. We also put a burlap banner (which I made) around the stage.

Thank you for checking out Luke's party! :)

Vendors

Printables - Spaceships and Laser Beams

Cake stands - HomeGoods, Pier 1, a few layers of the cupcake stand that my hubby built

Glass beverage canisters - Target (that I got 50% off in early summer)

Glass milk bottles - Polka Dot Market

Rectangle dishes (to resemble train) - TJ Maxx

Stripey straws and 36" balloons  - Shop Sweet Lulu