First I made the invitations. I used red folding cards from Dollarama (these are great, they are available in all sorts of colours and come in a pack of 6 for $2!). I searched all over for a Lighting McQueen stamp but all I could find was a "Ready Set Go" which suited pretty good. And of course a few weeks later I found the exact stamp I was looking for at Dollarama of all places, but the need for it was long gone. So I found some pictures on the Internet and printed a bunch of McQueen's and Mater's out on photo paper. I used some gold metallic rectangles to set it off a bit and then embossed the "Ready Set Go" stamp in glossy black. For the inside I stamped "Your invited" and printed the party info also on photo paper with another picture of McQueen racing as a watermark.
I didn't go too crazy on the decorating and focused more on things for the kids to do. I put up red and yellow balloons and just used plain yellow and red plates, silverware, napkins and table cloths. I got Cars tattoos, Frisbees and beach balls and let the kids go wild.
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| Oliver showing off some of his funky tattoos! |
My dad rented a red "sports" car and offered rides around the block. Well it wasn't really a sports car but it was red so Oliver couldn't tell.
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| Oliver pretending to take McQueen for a spin. |
I also planned some activities that the kids could do inside in case it was too hot outside and they needed to cool down. I found these great cardboard canvas pictures with McQueen printed on them. Instead of goodie bags I got Cars themed paper bags and filled them with Cars stickers, stamps, crayons and markers for each of the kids. All of which I also found at Dollarama and the kids loved using them all over their Cars pictures.
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| Oliver colouring his Cars picture. |
I also baked some plain sugar cookies in a bunch of car and truck shapes and put out some maple syrup cream cheese icing and a bunch of sprinkles and candies. The kids had a awesome time decorating their cookies and couldn't get enough! It was messy but fun and super cute watching the kids put a few sprinkles on their cookie and then a few in their mouth.
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| Oliver decorating his car shaped sugar cookie. |
I made my signature birthday cake with rice flour and maple syrup. Oliver just loves it and its not packed full of sugar like store bought cake so I feel better about him eating three pieces. The icing I also made with maple syrup whipped with cream cheese. Click on the lower right picture for the recipes. I used green sugar on the top and let it run in order to look like grass and created a road with chocolate cookie crumbs that went across the plate, up the cake and down again. Yellow gummy bears made the road lines and I used a tiny McQueen from a Kinder Egg and reflective stickers on toothpicks of the other movie characters.
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| McQueen and Mater Cake Balls |
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| Cars Cake |
The cake balls were my favourite part about this party. I made them chocolate cream flavor with chocolate cake and vanilla icing. Click the above left picture for the recipe. I coated half with red chocolate and half with milk chocolate. I used yellow chocolate on the red ones and wrote "95" on them to signify McQueen and used shaved almonds for Mater's two buck teeth. I love how the Mater's turned out! They were almost to cute to eat!
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| Oliver really taking McQueen for a spin! |
All in all the party was a huge success by Oliver. It was tons of fun and a great memory with the family. He suitingly got a McQueen car as one of his presents and scooted around the backyard for the rest of the afternoon. He absolutely loved the entire day!
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