Train Themed Birthday Party
Adorable train theme birthday party ideas featuring a “train station” dessert table, fun activities and cute party favors.
Wow, I feel like I’ve had lots of boy parties to share lately, which is good because sometimes the “prettiness” of girl parties seems to take over our creative side. This Train theme party is designed by Debbie of Wants & Wishes, for her nephew’s 3rd birthday.
Debbie always adds such thoughtfulness and creativity to her parties and this one is no exception as seen by her “build your own train” desserts.
Dessert Table
The dessert bar looks like a train station transformed into a sweet station on platform “3,” for the age.
Banners and Stop signs create the atmosphere of being in a train station.
Desserts include the birthday boy’s favorite treats. Cupcakes, suckers, candied popcorn, red licorice, and railroad sugar cookies.
Mini train car cakes can be filled with chocolate rock candy cargo!
Cookies are decorated to look like railroad tracks, then the kids can build their dessert train on top of it. Select just one candy or mix all different ones.
Tablescape
Kori shares her little guy’s second birthday party with these train party details.
- Create a “train track” table runner using plain cotton fabric and thick markers.
- Add some wooden trains to the center of the table.
- Set up the kid’s party favors as part of the place settings.
Train Theme Activities
Include some fun train themed activities such as coloring trains, train puzzles, and making a cardboard train out of boxes.
Party Favors
- Provide train conductor style hats for each child to wear and take home.
- Give little copies of “The Little Engine that Could” to each little guest.
- Add a wooden train whistle for everyone.
Party Tips
- Set up outside if you have the space and weather for it.
- Plan parties in between meals so some snacks and some desserts will be more than enough. Set up appetizers and finger food separate from the dessert.
- Use vintage train sets to decorate with, if you can find them. Look in thrift shops, online, or in your own attic!
- Buy most of the sweets were from the grocery store and decorate them your self using the color scheme. Top the cake with a toy train car.
- Add one or two specialty items such as themed cookies or fancy cake.
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Such a cute party. What little boy doesn’t love trains, and the cardboard boxes are perfect. Well done.
So cute! Loved the kids table setup & favors! My kids would have loved the cardboard boxes, too. 🙂
We learned the multiple party lesson the hard way, too. We ended up with 4 parties + a quiet celebration at home for our twin 3 year olds year before last. Absolutely insane. All because the main party venue had a 32 person (not kid, PERSON) max. NEVER AGAIN. We did a celebration at school (54 kids, 6 teachers theme: Toy Story), the “BIG” party at the Aquarium with behind the scenes meet the penguin encounter (16 kids, 18 parents (2 over the MAX limit)), the “after party” tour of the Aquarium and dinner at Joe’s Crabshack for my side of the family (8 kids & 17 adults), and finally a Rainforest Cafe party for my husband’s family (21 kids, 32 adults). When it was all said and done I made 102 party favors (Toy Story, Penguins/Fish, Beach, and Monkeys), made or bought 3 cookie cakes, 2 death by chocolate cakes, 6 ding dongs (for home), and 120 cupcakes. For 3 year olds…. Temporary insanity – that’s all I can say.
For thier 4th birthday we still did the school celebration since we were only going to invite a dozen or so kids from school to the actual party (they are in different classes, so there are 54 kids combined in their two classes) and then rented our neighborhood clubhouse for 1 big Disney Cars (with games, awesome cardboard car racing & a movie on the lawn) birthday bash for a mere 27 kids, and 56 adults. 🙂 It was still insane. And I swore afterwards – NEVER AGAIN. 🙂
For their upcoming birthday I am trying to talk them into a quiet trip for 4 (just us!) to Disneyland to see the new Cars Land. They are lobbying for renting a beach house for a week and doing a dinosaur fossil dig party on the beach. Sigh…
Beautiful party Kori! Glad we got to play a small part of it!!
Kori just DARLING! I love the train tracks down the table and up the backdrop of the dessert table. Fabulous idea. You are such a talent!!