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St. Patrick’s Day Freight for Wooden Trains

March 3, 2014 By Jessica Petersen 12 Comments

The Little Engineer and I started celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with our trains by decorating a few engines and making some new freight. Here are several easy ideas for ways to incorporate the holiday into any kind of toy train play.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

This post was originally published on March 3rd, 2013. It contains links to Amazon.com. If you click on one, we will receive a small commission — at no additional cost to you — on anything you buy at Amazon for a certain length of time afterwards. Read our disclosure policy for more details.

 

The Little Engineer responded with enthusiasm to my invitation to come help make freight for St. Patrick’s Day. We started off by decorating some of our green engines — Luke, Henry, and Percy — for the holiday.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

I picked up this pair of green plastic shamrock necklaces at Dollar Tree yesterday. They’re a nice size for the engines. I might have to go back and get more to be garlands on the buildings in the layout. They may have to go up over the hearts from our Valentine’s Day in Vicarstown layout, because the Little Engineer won’t let me take them down yet.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

I used the same tape I praised in Damage Free Decorating for Wooden Train Layouts, this time in three little loops along the foot plate of each engine.
St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

Then I cut a length of the shamrock necklace to fit and stuck it on.  With these necklaces, the small engines took five shamrocks down a side, the big coal tender engines took seven, and the coal tenders can have either three or four.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

In the process, we talked a bit about Ireland and the holiday. A little bit, I should say.  Our discussion was very narrow.  After I mentioned that I believe Luke from Blue Mountain Mystery is an Irish train and started picking up other green engines, most of our conversation revolved around questions like, “Is Henry Irish?” “Is Percy Irish?” “Are green engines Irish?”  (We decided they pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.)  At least he’ll have the color association between Ireland and green down.

Now that they were all spiffed up for St. Patrick’s Day, they needed some holiday freight to pull.

As the Little Engineer would say, Ta-da!

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

I picked up a bag of plastic gold coins with shamrocks on them at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

The Little Engineer particularly enjoyed stacking, loading, unloading, and re-stacking the coins.

I had also picked up two different packs of felt shamrock stickers.  The slightly more expensive pack had stickers in two different colors and three different sizes, similar to the heart stickers I used for the Easy DIY Valentine Freight.  They went together much like those hearts, only these were a bit trickier due their not being symmetrical.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

1. First, you peel off the backings and stick two of the shamrocks of the same size together.  I liked making the two sides of the shamrock two different colors.  It makes it look like there are more shamrocks in the freight cars than there really are.

2. See how the stems don’t line up?  I was worried that would be a problem, but it was a pretty simple thing to fix.

3. I just pinched the end of each side of the stem, pulled them apart slightly, and then stuck them together as straight as possible.  Then you can put a smaller shamrock sticker on top, if you wish.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

The Little Engineer also had fun loading these into the freight cars.  Even though they’re pretty much the same thing we did for Valentine’s Day, the new shapes, colors, and context were exciting and new for him.

The less expensive shamrock stickers were more difficult to work with.  The backings didn’t come off easily, and along with the stems, their leaves weren’t symmetrical. They all came out a bit twisted.  I got fed up after about three of them, but I may go back and do the rest when I can watch some TV and distract myself, because the next part was fun.

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

They looked a little plain, so we got out the glitter glue and decorated them.


St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

They turned out pretty cute with the glitter glue on them.  I was thinking that if I wanted to put myself through sticking enough of the shamrocks together, it could be fun to make a whole alphabet of lettered ones to play with.  The Little Engineer saw the “A” I put on the one I did and asked, “Is the ‘A’ walking?”  Why yes, now that you mention it…

St. Patrick's Day Freight and Decorations for Wooden Trains from Play Trains!

It didn’t take long before we had plenty of green ready for playing trains this month.  I walked away for a few minutes and came back to find the Little Engineer loading the leftover pieces of the necklace into a freight car, so there’s that option as well.

Filed Under: Preschoolers, St. Patrick's Day, Train Obsessed, Train Set Accessories, Uncategorized, Wooden Train Play Tagged With: decorations, DIY, freight, holidays, Spring, St. Patrick's Day, train set scenery

« Easy DIY Valentine Freight for Wooden Trains
Cherry Blossom Tunnel: Spring Outdoor Activity for Kids »

Comments

  1. Trisha @ Inspiration Laboratories says

    March 6, 2013 at 6:43 pm

    What a fun way to add some green to the trains!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 7, 2013 at 8:16 pm

      Thanks!

      Reply
  2. Tracey@We-Made-That says

    March 6, 2013 at 10:48 pm

    You are just so clever to think of all this stuff for trains! I love that you decorated the trains then made your shamrock freight to haul. Thanks so much for sharing all your wonderful ideas on We Made That each week!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 7, 2013 at 8:17 pm

      Eh, got to use my creativity somehow! 😉 I’ve always found it easier to think things up when given creative restraints. Thanks for hosting!

      Reply
  3. Mary Catherine says

    March 7, 2013 at 6:37 pm

    Oh my word, I just love how you incorporated St. Paddy’s Day with the trains. I am going to pin this now, so my own Engineer can try this out soon. Thanks so much for sharing this! 🙂

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 7, 2013 at 8:16 pm

      The green is so cheerful with the trains, isn’t it? Thanks so much for pinning! I’m following you there now. 🙂

      Reply
  4. Amy says

    March 7, 2013 at 8:39 pm

    So creative! Thanks for sharing this at the Weekly Kids Co-op today!

    Amy @ Creative Kid Snacks

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 7, 2013 at 9:00 pm

      Thanks! I’m glad I was finally able to link up…I tried and tried last night, but the link up button kept hiding behind the list of links. So strange!

      Reply
  5. Kimberly Scanlon says

    March 7, 2013 at 9:22 pm

    Such a cute idea! I’m lovin’ all the different steps!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 7, 2013 at 9:29 pm

      Thanks!

      Reply
  6. Carrie says

    March 15, 2013 at 5:09 pm

    What a wonderful idea! I love the necklaces on them. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!

    Reply
    • Jessica says

      March 18, 2013 at 8:08 pm

      I thought the necklaces were a very exciting find…I was glad they worked out so well when I got them home.

      Reply

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Jessica Petersen, author of Old Tracks, New Tricks
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