Using a Birthday Train File for a Child’s Birthday
Last week I started a miniseries, Make A File Do More. And this week I want to show you how I personally made one cut file to make all the decorations for my son’s birthday. (Please excuse some of the photos. I wanted to make sure to get this posted without causing further delay on reshooting some of the items and editing. Photos will be swapped out in a couple days to better renditions.)
For each of my boys’ birthdays, I give them the option of their theme and I make decorations for them. This year my son wanted a Train birthday. I pulled out the file I made for Easter last year and I updated it with birthday balloons and an added insert to make 3-D Table Top decorations.
The only files that I used for my son’s party, and this blog, are Birthday Train and 3D Train Frame.
As you can see here, we have an absolutely beautiful cut file that looks great in its original form. But as you see, with the cake topper above, it’s an even better as a blank canvas to personalize and use hand detailing to create something above and beyond.
Children’s birthday parties, what are the three standard decorating items for Children’s Birthday Parties? They are Cake Topper, Table Topper, and Banner/Bunting. Everyone gets them. And these items are standard products found in every store, even a dollar store. The one thing that box stores cannot sell are what YOU add and make a standard cut file into something special and unique for the person you are celebrating.
The great part of making one file work extra is that you can pick and choose what you want to use, and how you want to use it. For example, the train is 5 elements. For the Cake Topper, I chose the most important part of the train and then worked with the baker to make the cake and the decorations cohesive. The baker was excited to see me today, because all they saw were my notes asking them to move the white icing balloons in from the corner a little bit so that I could use them as the steam coming from the smoke stack of the Engine.
Let me tell you, when you’re in one industry you look forward to the unusual. It was unusual to ask for balloons to be turned into steam. And I’m sure it made their day! It definitely made my guest’s day. I’m happy because this was the easiest way to make train steam in my busy mom schedule. Otherwise, if I had the time, I totally could have gone the next step and got dry ice and rigged a system to produce actual “smoke” for the train. (Something I would create and recommend to my clients.)
As you’ll see with the 3D Train, you can even change up how you decorate within all your different components.
Instead of the “confetti shower” inside the train (Cake Topper and Banner/Bunting), you can create reflections on the window.
What I absolutely love about this cut file is how easy it is to combine with any other decorative element you want to choose to go with. If you’re party is on the budget, you can go to the dollar store and get the balloon print table cloths. You don’t even have to coordinate you paper plates. If you child literally went down the aisle and grabbed plates of one color, bowls of another, cups of a third color, and napkins of a fourth color (all because they LOVE color), it’s okay. It’s perfect even! Because the different colors of the balloons have you covered.
If you have even more to your budget, you can have the dry ice rigged to all your engines. You can put in your photo booth, carnival stations, balloon arch… everything you desire can be used with this cut file and you have the perfect unifying piece to make everything cohesive.
This train can be added to shirts for the birthday boy/girl, the party planner or point person, as a go away gift for your guests.
Birthday Train can even be resized for countless other items. I’ve successfully used all 5 cars on a 12 inch wide canvas bag. It can be sized up to make even larger items. In fact, I sized the Banner/Bunting train cars up so that most are 12 inches wide. The Closed Car is the largest car, and that one ended up being cut from two 12×12 inch cardstock squares and pieced together. If I can piece together one train (and absolutely no one knew!) then it’s possible to make lawn decorations from this cut file.
The bottom line is that when you have the right cut file, the possibilities are endless!
Just like I said in Make A File Do More, it doesn’t matter which type of an event you are planning for. It doesn’t matter what your inspiration folder in Pinterest looks like. The one thing that every event needs is one item to be your focal point. Pick your favorite phrase. Pick your favorite SVG. Pick your absolute favorite Pinterest idea. Make that one thing be the end all, be all of your design. Let it be the heart beat in every element that you put out. It doesn’t have to on everything. But that one idea is repeated enough everywhere that it forces all of the other ideas and elements to merge into that one idea. Everything else becomes backup singers or backup dancers to that one idea that you make shine!
If you are interested in train cut files, please visit Pacific Northwest Event Design. Coming up in time for Easter will be my Easter Train. Sign up for my newsletter below to find out when that file is live. Also coming in the future will be seasonal trains.
The Files used for this blog are Birthday Train and 3D Train Frame. For more information on these files, please click the above links!
How I Can Do That 