"Thomas the Tank Engine" post round-up

I hadn't planned on posting these cupcakes from my son's Thomas the Train first birthday party, because we all know I'm no baking expert, or cake-decorating expert.

But then a lot of people started landing on my blog by Googling variations of "Thomas the Train DIY Birthday Party" and the like, so I thought it might be helpful to share what we actually did. I also thought it was a good way to round up my previous Thomas posts...  
My husband baked these cupcakes, and then we decorated them together. He made the cake batter from scratch, but we cheated and used store-bought frosting! We're kickin' it on the "Semi-Homemade" tip. The frosting was a white (so likely vanilla, buttercream, or creamcheese?) flavor from Pillsbury or Duncan Hines. I know, helpful.

We didn't use foodcoloring on the frosting, opting instead for Wilton frosting coloring (available at WalMart and Jo-Ann) in red, blue, and black to create gray, light blue, and hot pink red cupcake tops.

I sprinkled some with red and white sprinkles, some with red only, poked some Thomas the Tank Engine Party toothpicks, and placed sugar Thomas icing decorations on others. We bought the toothpicks, sugar decorators, and lots of other decorations from Party City. Some plates and cups were purchased from Target.

For our DIY Thomas the Tank Engine Smash Cake, we just picked out one of our smaller rectangular cake pans and backed it in there. Once it was baked, we cut a good-sized circle from the rectangle (pictured in the collage above). Husband frosted it with gray frosting and I used a Wilton black icing tube to draw Thomas' face on it.

Links to my other Thomas and Friends posts:

Thomas the Tank Engine First Birthday Quilt

Thomas the Train Tank Top for Mommy

Thomas and Friends Fabric Bunting

Thomas and Friends Paper Bunting

Thomas & Friends birthday party bunting (paper)

I hadn't planned on making two sets of bunting for the young mister's birthday party, but when I saw this book for just a buck at the thrift store, I thought it should come home with us.

It's one of those books that makes sounds... but this book was pretty old and beat up, so the sounds were less children's book and more creepy horror movie-- all scratchy and hard to hear.

I thought I could rescue it by giving it new life-- Thomas the Train Book Bunting! I used thrifted bias tape for the project as well.

I actually made this one before the Thomas the Train Fabric Bunting, which is now hanging in his room. I decided that hanging this one too might be overkill, so... I'm actually going to disassemble this one and use it in a different project! This Thomas the Train book is getting more lives than a cat.

I used a fancy paper punch around the edges, which kinda gave it a Papel Picado feel.

Thomas & Friends Book Bunting

Materials: Thomas the Train Book ($1 - thrifted), bias tape (.50 cents - thrift store), thread

Total cost: ~$1.50

Thomas & Friends birthday party bunting (fabric)

Here's some bunting I made for the LO's first birthday party! As I mentioned before, his party theme is Thomas  & Friends.

Not going to write out a tutorial, but here's the method I used:

• I did some light math and determined how many triangles I wanted, how far apart, and how large they should be.
• Based on those measurements, drew and cut out my Isosceles Triangle pattern.
• Cut out twice as many triangles as I wanted to end up with, so that each would have a front and back.
• Sewed down each of the longer two sides, right-sides together.
• Turned them right-side out and pressed.
• Pinned and sewed them into thrifted double-fold bias tape, one seam at the top and one at the bottom of the tape.

I used a red paisley fabric from Gramma's stash. I was hoping it would  give off a train engineer's bandanna vibe, but truthfully, it was the only red in the stash. I bought a yard of the only Thomas cotton that Jo-Ann's had (before I found these fat quarters), but some of it ended up getting used in the quilt anyway. Yellow bias tape was the best match I had, and goes with Thomas's painted on number "1".

It'll hang in his room when the party's over.

I made a paper bunting too (haven't taken pics yet), and the quilt is actually done (camera died with pics on the cam's "hard drive")... watch for both here soon.

Thomas & Friends Fabric Bunting

Materials: red fabric (free - stash), Thomas the Tank fabric ($9.99 with a 50% coupon ~ $5 - Jo-Ann), bias tape (.50 cents - thrift store), thread

Total cost: ~$5.50

Project: DIY Nursery Letters

When I was a kid, I was always super disappointed whenever I perused personalized souvenirs. You know the ones; keychains, license plates, and shotglasses that come already emblazoned with common names. I could never find my name.

So now, I love the chance to personalize anything I can. That's carrying over to purchases for my son, too. So even though nursery letters are becoming pretty cliched, I still wanted to make some. In fact, since his first name is so short, I decided to plow forward into his middle moniker as well.

They're pretty straightforward, so I'm not going to insult your intelligence with a tutorial. I wanted the "cobbled together and collected from various sources" look, so they intentionally have different fonts and paint designs.

UPDATE: I've had lots of people landing here looking for ideas to DIY their own, so even though I didn't photograph a tutorial, here's a list of what I did (see below the new picture for a list of tools and materials):

1. Shopped at local craft and hobby stores (and one big box chain!) for mismatched letters.
2. Sketched out the letters on paper (see the new picture below), and drew designs on the letters so that I wouldn't have the same patterns too near each other.
3. Came up with a color scheme, and just like the patterns, sketched it on paper so I wouldn't have too much of the same color too near each other.
4. Lightly sanded the letter with a fine-grit sandpaper. I was mostly looking to smooth out the manufacturing imperfections.
5. I considered priming them, but didn't! I got right to painting the base coat on each letter. Some took more than one to get the base as dark as I wanted it.
6. Once they'd dried, either free-handed the next design layer, or started applying painter's tape. (TIP: paint the base coat over the painter's tape before changing colors. This'll keep the second color from seeping under the tape).
7. Finished each one off with a layer of clear spraypaint! DUNZO.

DIY Nursery Letters
Acrylic craft paint on wood
Letters: From Richard's and WalMart, $1.99 - $2.49 each, approximately $18 total
Paints: On sale for 50 cents each at JoAnn (Purchased in Navy, Cobalt, Orange, White, Black, Yellow, Red, then mixed)
Foam brushes: $1.99 at JoAnn
Crackle medium: $2.49 (Used on letters "T" and "L")
Clear spray paint finish: About $3.69 at WalMart, KRYLON in Satin
Total project cost: Approximately $29

Thrifty Finds: fabric and notions

I've discussed the problem with my local thrift stores at length (if you don't feel like clicking, the long and short of it is that they pay higher rent than in other parts of the country, and the pricers are very Internet savvy... making most local thrift stores here not very "thrifty").

So I didn't feel like I was getting the greatest deal when I walked out paying $16.05 for the fabric, binding, bias tape, and piping pictured above.

But I couldn't help it; 50 cents for each of the Wrights tape/binding/etc. was certainly a good buy. I would've purchased those anyway. The fabric all worked out to about $2 or less a yard, but it still pained me to buy it, considering I've still got my Gramma's stash to work through.

It's just that I don't think I have any little boy fabric in the current stash, and I've got to start jamming out various item's for my son's room. The trucks and tractors pictured above hardly fit with the "Robots in Space" boys room theme, but at the very least they could go in a quilt. Prices for the truck and tractor remnants ranged from 50 cents for a 7 inch by 2.25 yard strip, to $2.50 for 2 full yards of the John Deere stuff.

The 90s looking floral second from left I'm not particularly fond of, but for the price and quantity ($5.50 for 3 yards), it'd be great for a muslin without me actually having to use muslin. And that piece in the middle is may absolute fave; a HOUNDSTOOTH with a FLORAL BORDER PRINT! I paid $2.50 for 1.5 yards, but might've dropped a little more for that one.

Birch Fabrics giveaway!

Source: birchfabrics.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Pinterest says I pinned this rocket fabric (with the intention of making it part of my "Robots in Space" boys room theme) a whole nine weeks ago... more than two months before I knew that it was going to be part of Birch Fabrics' giveaway of their Circa 52 fabric collection! I want it so badly.

Check out Birch Fabrics, and learn about the giveaway on their blog.

Mood board: Robots in space boy's room

Here's a work in progress mood board for the boy's room, which I told you before started out as "Robots in Space". But the thrift store sold that robot/rocket fabric and now has these cool dino curtains....

I think the more important thing in the above mood board is the color pallette; reds, oranges, gradient blue and grays. It's something I'm pretty stuck on (which is why I stuck that Harry Potter poster in there even though he has nothing to do with either robots or space), and while the theme is fluid, the colors have stuck!

Now, if we can just get moved out before my 5-month-old becomes a teenager and starts actually wanting a say in his room.

Boy's room ideas: Robots in Space

I guess I should start by saying I'm not so into the super matchy-matchy bedroom-in-a-bag, everything's-put-together-for-you way to decorate a baby's room (although Overstock has some cute ones I did consider). But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun; it IS a kid's room after all.

So... I like "Robots in Space". Which actually sounds pretty corny now that I'm typing it out, but I've had it in my head for a while. Too bad for me then that this room on Apartment Therapy's Odeedoh wrecked that for me. How will the room I make for my baby ever be complete with this:

Check out the badassical GIANT robo-man! ACK! <robot voice>AWESOME OVERLOAD</robot voice>

Lucky for me, I was planning on going with a slight variation of the strictly-robots theme. I'm thinking more of an Atomic Age/Jetsons/Lost in Space feel, but not overpoweringly so. In fact, the theme may only show up in the form of a rug (especially now that the thrift store already sold the robot fabric I was planning in using for curtains).

So here, a potential rug roundup:

Ranging from $50 -$75, this "Roule Olive Kids Collection Go Robots" one from Amazon.com seems like an economical choice. I also found it on BabiesRUs.com.

Also from Amazon, this "Momeni" retro robot rug is a little pricier, from about $170 on up.

These two from Amazon are priced at $219 each and the dimensions are not listed.

We could also always go with a space-themed rug, and there are LOTS of those out there, including on Amazon, at Home Depot, on Overstock, and on BabiesRUs.com

Which one do you like? Are there any others you'd like to let me know about?