How to throw a fire engine themed party

My son is obsessed with fire engines. OBSESSED! So much so that we had a fire engine party for him when we had his very first BIG party last year. 

• Print it: Themed birthday party invites

I DIY'd the heck out of this party because it was cheaper than hiring a party planner.

Here are some great ideas if you want to throw your kid a fire engine themed party. We kept it really simple in terms of decor, the only things we had were a Happy Birthday bunting, a couple of fire engines on his cake, some food labels for the table and a birthday stats poster.

The Decor 

Use red, yellow, orange, black and white as your colour scheme for table clothes, plates, cups, serviettes and popcorn boxes.

Click on the pictures to download the printable labels.

Table cards for the fire themed foods:

How to make them

1. Print to an A4 page.
2. Paste the entire page on to red board paper.
3. Cut out and fold in half.

Fire extinguisher labels

How to make them:

1. Print to an A4 page
2. Cut out the strips.
3. Take off the original labels off the water bottles.
4. Wrap the fire extinguisher labels around the bottles and secure with a piece of sticky tape.

Cupcake toppers

There are 6 per A4 page

How to make them:

1. Print to an A4 page.
2. Cut out the circles.
3. Using a piece of sticky tape, attach a toothpick to the back. 
4. You can double the circles using some glue stick up if you want an image on both sides.

Food Ideas

Even though it was a party filled with sugar, I wanted there to be some healthy options for parents who wouldn't want their kids hopped up on sugar.

• Healthy party food that kids will love

You can have little fruit cups with bite sized fruit pieces in the theme's colour. Think strawberries, naartjie segments, pineapple, sweet melon, watermelon etc. 

You can also get little bottles of water and rebrand them as fire extinguishers (See how to in the decor section).

Jelly and yoghurt cups were a definite hit! They were the most time consuming thing to make but my son still talks about the fire engine jelly I made him. 

Here's how to make them (makes approx 15 cups):

Ingredients:

1L double cream plain yoghurt
6 packets of jelly (strawberry, pineapple and orange)

Method:

1. Make the yellow jelly first as per package instructions and divide among cups. Keep half a cup aside.
2. Allow to set.
3. Take 1 cup of yoghurt and combine with the half cup of jelly. Over the back of a spoon pour on top of the set yellow jelly.
4. Allow to set.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 ending with red jelly on top.

More party inspiration:

• Robot party
• Nautical Party
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party
• Ice cream party
• The Lion King: A first birthday party
• Spiderman party