Sunday, March 22, 2015

Race Car / Cars Birthday Party!

Little M&M had a super successful birthday party! This year he chose Cars as his party theme. Check out the decorations, as well as what went on during party time!

First, the invitation! I created this in Photoshop Elements. I took out his name, address and phone number but you can get a good idea of how it looked:


On the way in party guests walked by our cars, which had been turned into Cars characters using poster board and crayons.



We mostly use the side entrance to our house instead of the front door. So I printed out a street sign to help guide people in the right way!


And here is the poster I taped to that door.


Birthday banner...free printable template comes from this blog!


Here are some other street signs that were hung throughout the house. The "Do Not Enter" sign was taped to a door in our house that leads to a few rooms we didn't want the kids to wander through. We wanted to contain the party. The "Speed Limit 21 and over!" sign was hanging above the stairs to the basement, where adults would find alcoholic beverages and could do some gambling after the scheduled party events. And the "Yield" sign was hanging where a few rooms met, just for fun!


Here is a glimpse of the dining room, all set for the ten kids to eat their lunch. Little M&M had a giant Lightning McQueen balloon taped to the back of his!


Close-up of each individual table setting: the cups and forks came from Walmart. The plates, napkins and checkered tablecloth came from Oriental Trading!


Here is the buffet table, where we had most of the food. The checkered banner is also from Oriental Trading.


Now onto my favorite part...the food! We had all of Little M&M's favorites!

Fillmore's Organic Fuel (water) and Dinoco Fuel (apple juice).


Sally's Cozy Cones (Bugles).


Doc's Dipsticks (Veggie Straws).


Race Cars (apples and grapes). I saw these on Pinterest, and had to try them!


Mater's Tater Chips and Salsa.



The Piston (fruit) Cup!


Traffic Lights (Rice Krispies Treats).


Luigi's Casa della Tires (chocolate donuts, with a skewer to hold the tower up).


Lightning's Hot Rods (hot dogs). Buns and condiments were on the table beside this.


Sarge's Subs (assorted heroes).


Mack's Mac & Cheese.


And here were our cupcakes. Vanilla and chocolate were offered. Checkered flag toothpicks are from Oriental Trading. The cupcake liners and candles were also black and white striped, purchased just at our local grocery store.


Here's the birthday boy, in a Lightning McQueen shirt, of course!


We also printed out this picture from our recent Disney World vacation, and set it up in a frame near the party food. Certainly not an elaborate photo display, like last year's Paw Patrol party, but still cute!


We always like to have a fun craft during our parties. As guests arrived, we lead the kids right over to the little picnic table where they could decorate their very own race car! The wooden race cars are from Oriental Trading. We just used markers of assorted colors, self-adhesive acrylic shapes and googly eyes. They all worked really hard on these!



As they finished, the kids were able to test out their cars on the roads I made using free printables from Picklebums. How awesome are these?! I put a piece of brown craft paper across their train table, and it worked out really well. Notice Little M&M's car (red like Lightning McQueen) and Honey Pot's car (with the adorable smiley face)!


Later, after lunch, we raced their cars! My husband created this awesome race track for us. The kids had a blast!! And look at all those fancy cars!


Party Favors are always fun to put together. We had these set up on a table beside the door. The label that I added to each says "[Child's Name] thank you for coming!" I used the free printable labels from this site to create these.


Here's a close-up of the sign above them:


And inside the paper bags were:

- Cars Stickers
- Cars easy return  yo-yo
- Cars Bubbles
- Cars Jellybeans



This party was so much fun to put together!




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