Sustainable & Minimal Second Birthday Party

As with my little girl’s birthday party, I wanted to give my little boy a big colourful celebration on his special day but without the all plastic and processed-ness of a standard party. He absolutely loves Thomas the Tank Engine at the moment so that was the loose theme. He also wanted his birthday cake to be our family chocolate fudge cake so once again I needed to plan out how to create a themed cake with soft gooey fudge cake, this time around the challenge was a train!

My original plan was to have the chocolate cake in the centre and then a sponge train cake going around the outside. Paul found a silicon train tray in the garage that I had completely forgotten we owned (not very minimalist of me…), I think my Mama got it for my brother over a decade ago and when he moved to China we acquired it. I got a huge 16-inch cake board and made the chocolate cake (recipe can be found here), then I made the sponge cake and it was going to look great…. except it wouldn’t come out of the mould! I was completely stuck.

I tried twice and then gave up and started forming a new plan (I panic ranted to Paul in between these two points as I was doing this the day before his birthday as I like to have yummy fresh cake, but this does lead to stress if the original plan goes bottoms up). In the end I made gingerbread biscuits which I cut out with a train cookie cutter and once baked and cooled I topped with the leftover blue icing from TBears cake (very grateful Thomas is blue so I didn’t need to go out and buy more!). I then wrote his name across the biscuits and lay them around the cake. I used leftover tubes of writing icing to do this but if I was to do it again I would make my own and use a piping bag, it would take longer but look much neater.

Once I had the fudge icing on the cake it looked a bit bare so I drew a big two on a piece of paper and cut it out leaving a two shaped hole in the middle, I then pressed it into the half-dried icing and sprinkled the leftover blue and purple mermaid sprinkles into the gap, making sure to go right up to the edges. Once I removed the paper it left a clear number two which I was very pleased with. 

I also did another biscuit order with B’s Bakes and asked her for some Thomas the Tank Engine biscuits and look what Bekka sent! I actually cried when I opened them, they were so lovely. This is the second time we have ordered from her and she is just the nicest, most helpful person and her work is stunning. As well as looking incredible they also taste delicious. Once again these beautiful biscuits elevated the birthday table and most importantly made my little one ridiculously happy. This is not sponsored in any way I just absolutely adore this small business. We would highly recommend her if you are looking for biscuits for any occasion!

For his decorations, I got out some blue and white paper lanterns which I strung up across the table as we did for his sister. They looked great and he was thrilled to have blue balloons, or as he says it “boo boons!”. I also made him a blue number two to decorate the table and for him to hold in his birthday photo. For this, I simply cut out the shape from some cardboard and painted it in acrylic paint in different blues so it would be similar to Thomas. I also painted him a big name banner, again on cardboard. The background I did in the same blues as the number two and the letters of his name I did in red to make them really stand out (I chose red as Thomas has red stripes for those of you not in the know).

I also used two of his toys to decorate as they were too fiddly to wrap; the cute red helicopter and biplane really added something to the table. Our presents to him were wrapped in old bags we had kept as well as brown paper and we used twine to hold the paper in place as tape cannot be recycled. I also love the old fashioned look that brown paper and twine or ribbon creates! 

His gifts from us all came from the app Vinted. 

We also got him some new red wellies (£3 + postage), a big Peter Rabbit floor puzzle (£2.50 +postage) and a Thomas the Tank playbook and mat (£3 + postage). The Thomas play mat and characters are getting an awful lot of love from both children.

His big sister got him a Mickey Mouse jumper (£2 + postage) and a Minnie Mouse pencil case (£3.50 + postage). We like to let her chose what to give as we believe it helps her understand and learn about the importance of giving to others and that presents are bought to make someone happy or be something that they need. His auntie got him a Thomas & friends onesie, a Mickey & friends jumper and a giant animal floor puzzle (pictured above with the Peter Rabbit puzzle), again, all from Vinted as well.

All in all it was a wonderful day, quiet as it was just us, and I never thought he would have a second lockdown birthday but I love the slow unplanned pace that our birthdays take and don’t wish to ever change that aspect.

I hope this gives someone some inspiration and shows that birthdays can be celebrated differently and in a more sustainable way. Even little changes make a big difference and add up to big change.

What do you do to celebrate your littles birthdays? We would love to know.

Livvy and Summer