Disney Cars Party Ideas
|This past weekend, we celebrated my son’s 4th birthday. At this point in his life, the only things he cares about are dinosaurs and Disney Cars. Since we already did a dinosaur-themed party last year, I decided to go with a Disney Cars party for this birthday. Just as it was for my daughter’s unicorn-themed 6th birthday party, this birthday would also be celebrated at home with no visitors. However, this was not going to stop me from making it magical while still on a budget. Here are all my Disney Cars party ideas that took me from this:
to this:
Disney Cars Party Ideas
All in all I only spent $40. And if you don’t count the cake, I only spent $24 on just the decorations. Here’s my breakdown:
Plastic tablecloths – $3
Balloons – $8
Ribbon – $1
Balloon Strip – $3
Banner – $1
Black foam board – $2
Cones $4
Plates – $2
Cake – $16
I originally planned on buying mostly generic party decor in the theme of black, red, and white and only purchasing a few actual Cars decor. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find a single Cars party decoration at the store. When I searched online, everything licensed was a little more than I wanted to spend so I knew I had to get creative.
Backdrop
The main part of my back drop was a simple red plastic table cloth I got from The Dollar Tree that I hung from the ceiling with tape. Once you take the tablecloth out of the packaging, it’s going to have a lot of lines and wrinkles throughout. You can get rid of these fold lines by using a hairdryer on it on a warm setting to smooth out the wrinkles.
I also printed out a black and white checkered pattern and cut the paper into strips which I then taped to the top border of my backdrop.
Banner
I found a generic “Happy Birthday” banner at The Dollar Tree and even though it was a little too colorful for my liking, I felt I could still make it work.
I printed out pictures of the characters from Cars and cut them out and taped to the letters for an instant Cars banner.
Balloon Arch
This was my first time attempting a balloon arch. I looked up a ton of tutorials for it on YouTube and felt I could tackle it pretty easily. I found ribbon and red, white, and black balloons at The Dollar Tree and also a purchased a balloon strip online. While it wasn’t too hard, it was a little time consuming. I had about 50 balloons and my arch was more like a column. I decided to use it on just one side of my backdrop.
Table
For the table setup, I covered my kitchen island with black and red plastic table cloth. I had leftover black and yellow caution tape from our Halloween decorations so I used that to tape the two table covers together and also act as the side of the road that I created with the black table cover. I then cut out strips of white paper and taped it down to use as road lines. I also bought little toy traffic cones from The Dollar Tree to add to the road theme going on on the table. I also set up red and black paper plates to add to the color theme.
Winner’s Podium
For the centerpiece of my table, I thought a fitting decoration would be competition podium with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place on it. To make this, I used three cardboard boxes of different sizes.
I didn’t want to paint the boxes because I knew I didn’t have enough paint or patience so I used a combination of black foam board and black construction paper to cover the boxes.
Here’s the finished results. I think it’s a winner!
I put the birthday cake at the number 1 spot, my son’s largest Lightning McQueen toy at number 2, and Cruz at number 3.
Traffic Light
I had leftover black foam board and cardboard rolls from the wrapping paper for my son’s presents so I decided to use these scrap pieces to make a traffic light.
Toys
Don’t forget to use any and all toys, books, or boxes as decor. My son does have a few toys from Cars but most of them are pretty small. However, he does have a few bigger cars that I thought would look better and more prominent on the table. I printed out Lightning McQueen’s eyes and mouth and taped them to a couple of toy cars and they instantly became Cars cars.
Gifts
My friends and family dropped off lots of gifts for my son before the party. Unfortunately, none of the wrapping or bags fit our Cars theme. But that was an easy fix. I printed out some Cars images and just taped them to the front of the presents
Cake
I bought a $16 8-inch Cars cake from Walmart. It came with a colorful bottom border, a Lightning McQueen car, a Cruz car, and a flat plastic Jackson Storm placard and I added my own printed cake topper that I designed myself. If you don’t have a market or bakery that can do a Cars design for cheap, you can still get a generic cake in your theme colors and add your own car toys and cake topper for the same look.
That’s all for my Disney Cars party ideas. My son absolutely loved it and had an amazing birthday!
You can easily recreate something similar for your own Disney Cars party. Don’t forget to use as much of what you already have as you can, printing things out is cheap and easy, and try to stay away from branded items because they always mark up licensed products when you can recreate them for much cheaper.
Lisa
Lisa plays the role of the Fairy Godmother on the Pure Costumes team.
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