This party is very special and dear to me since it is the 3rd birthday party of my eldest son, Aidan. Aidan has been going through a mix of phases from Dinosaurs to Toy Story to Monsters and now Transformers! However he has always had a very special love for Thomas the Tank Engine as many little boys do (as you can probably see by his toy room here)

I dont particularly like going down the "commercial" party route and wanted to stay away from "Thomas" (although you will see I did hire a Thomas jumping castle!). Instead I decided to create a vintage train party in the colour scheme of sky blue & red, with the party to be held at "Aidansville" station to celebrate the 3rd birthday of "The Aidan Express"!

I found an adorable train collection stationary set on Etsy by Parties By Hardie. The printables were so affordable and upon purchase I was emailed a set that I was able to edit and customise with whatever text I wanted and then print my own stationary. Loved it! Here is a copy of the invitation that I went with:

I spent many late nights painting and building props including – a custom train station backdrop that I drew and hand painted myself. The station was of course called“Aidansville”, the clock was pointing to “3 o’clock” (being Aidan’s age) and I had 2 windows representing “Tickets” and “Luggage”. I got my
little man dressed up as a train driver and took photos of him before the party to stick in the windows (you might notice one is of him holding tickets for the
ticket booth window and the second photo of him holding mini suitcases for the luggage window).

I created a super long (4.5 metre) dessert table and covered it with hessian to give it a rustic feel. I built & painted a wooden train track to line the front of the table and bought plastic tubs that I painted red & blue and put wheels on to create “train carriages” to hold the food platters. Aidan already had a cute vintage
red ride-on wooden train that headed the table and “pulled” the carriages along the tracks!

The menu consisted of: caramel popcorn, chocolate bars in custom wrappers, train sugar cookies, red velvet cupcakes, blue & red jelly jars, oreo cookie pops, wild berry yogurt push pops, chocolate ripple cake and fruit skewers (of which I used a train shape cookie cutter to cut the watermelon pieces).

I also had lolly jars filled with red & blue candy: jaffas, bon bons, jelly beans, raspberries, sour straps and clouds.

I used my vintage wooden compartment box to hold 4 types of lollipops – train shape suckers, swirl sticks, rock crystal sticks & swirl lollipops.

The birthday cake was BEYOND AMAZING! My wonderful friend, Kylie Bourban, created a fabulous train & carriages cake to match my theme perfectly! The train and carriages were each a different flavour: chocolate mud, white chocolate mud, jaffa mud & banana mud. Yum! Yum!

To drink, I served raspberry cordial and iced water in my glass beverage dispensers from Lily Chic Events, along with mini glass bottles with red & blue paper
straws. I also used printable drink bottle wrappers from Parties By Hardie for the kids pop top juices.

To set the scene, I had my cousin dress as the “Fat Controller” (or as he is officially known, "Sir Topham Hatt") and he greeted guests as they arrived. I made train boom gates and had them positioned along a train track we stuck on the ground using black tape. I also made a “Railway Crossing” traffic sign and had a STOP sign along the tracks. 

For entertainment, I hired a Thomas jumping castle and a motorised ride-on train (which we called “The Aidan Express”) to give the children train rides throughout the afternoon, which was a huge hit! 

The children received lots of little train paraphernalia to take home – train shaped crayons, train whistles, train driver hats and train drink bottles. I also had wooden train toys that the children were able to paint themselves and take home.

Overall the party was "choo-choo" fun and my little man had an absolute blast with his little friends. I just had to share some photos of Aidan as he arrived at the party and saw what his mummy had created for him. It's just priceless and makes all the hard work so very worthwhile when you see that look of awe and amazement on your childs face!

I have to say a very big thankyou to Lee Bird Photography for coming along at such notice! My original photographer got stuck in Sydney with the Qantas airline cancellations and sadly couldn't make it back in time. However Lee Bird was just so wonderful to work with and I'm sure you'll all agree has some very special photography talent! I love how she edited the photos with a vintage treatment. Thank you so much Liat!

I am also SUPER EXCITED that Aidan's party has been featured on the amazing queen of dessert tables blog... Amy Atlas! This is my 3rd feature on Amy Atlas and I am beyond ecstatic! Thankyou Amy & Lisa xx

Some other vendor credits I must mention:
Photography - Lee Bird Photography
Printable Stationary - Parties By Hardie
Birthday Cake - Kylie Bourban
Train Crayons - Ivy Lane Designs
Jumping Castle - Speciality Castles
Trackless Train Ride - A&A Jumping Castles

When my client asked me to style her daughter’s 8th party and told me she wanted a “beauty spa” theme, I was very excited and immediately thought of gorgeous tones of pinks and lavender. Having two sons of my own, I always love when I get a chance to style things ‘girly’. However my excitement soon changed when she went on to say that Chloe wanted the colour “blue”! I had to have a laugh as my most recent parties have all been blue and I thought - oh not another one! Haha! But I must admit I have always been a ‘blue girl’ myself since I was very young and it is my favourite colour so I knew I could create a delightful little party for Chloe and her friends!

For the dessert table I used my pretty ruffled tablecloth from Vintage Sew and So and created a
backdrop made from strips of hanging ribbon in shades of blue, white & silver.

We decided to call the event "Chloe's Day Spa" so I used a few beauty themed products such as a wire bodice, shower cap, loofah and mini bottles of blue fragrance to set the scene. I also designed a set of printables using a pretty blue haired girl as our themed character.

Sweet treats on the table were in tones of blue including blue heaven jelly, oreo cookie pops, fairy floss, white chocolate mud cupcakes, mini blueberry meringues and chocolates in custom wrappers - of which I made them all. There was also blue candy including bon bons, bubblegum clouds, jelly beans, chocolate beans and sour strings.

To drink I made a delicious blueberry fruit punch which looked gorgeous in my apothecary beverage dispenser from Little Big Company. The drinks were served in mini glass bottles that I embellished with ribbon & flowers along with pretty paper straws.

The girls also received a cute shimmy makeup bag and were able to select blue eye shadows, nail polish and lip glosses.

Throughout the afternoon, Chloe’s mummy treated the girls to relaxing manicures and pedicures. For the manicure station I was inspired by the little “shop awnings” made by The Party Dress here, and I thought I might try to make my own version with blue and white striped canvas fabric for the awning. With the help of my wonderful Dad and grandmother, we came up with a cute little creation I think!

For the pedicures, Chloes mother did a lovely job of setting up chairs & foot soak buckets with rose petals. So sweet! And I printed up little signs and framed them for the mani & pedi stations.

A super sweet party, for a super sweet young lady. Hope you had a relaxed and pampered day Chloe!

Vendor Credits:
Photography - Danielle Cutri Photography
Ruffled Tablecloth - Vintage Sew and So
Jars, Choc beans & Enjoy stamp - Sweet Style
Cupcake wrappers - Mon Tresor
Drink dispenser - Little Big Company