Meagan's How To: August 2013

Hello All!
This morning, there was a challenge to do a scrapbook layout about celebrations and I immediately thought about the fun party that I threw for my 3 year old. He was in love with Disney Cars (and so were we!). I worked to transform my house into Cars Land! I scoured the internet for inspiration. Check out my Pinterest Board for more: http://pinterest.com/meagan43/disney-cars-party/

To start - you need a starting line! I made my own with fabric in red and black/white racing checked. I cut out the letters of black felt and sewed them onto a rectangle of more of the black and white checked.

Then, I designated areas like in Cars Land. You fuel up at Flo's (lunch), you get surplus at Sarge's (presents), you stop in at the Cozy Cone for treats (desserts), and play at Luigi's & Mater's. I think everything came together! Without further ado, here is the photos

We enlarged (a lot) a photo that we took of the real Flo's sign in Disneyland's Cars Land, backed with foam core and cut it out. It still hangs in my kitchen 4 months later ;)

Easy decor - found the image for Dinoco online, added it to a blue background (digitally) and then added to empty cans. Just a fun little element. Although, they would also make a good bowling game.

I took great pains, to make all the food "theme" related. I served: Luigi's Pizza Tires, Mack's Cheesy Wheels, Lizzie's Nuts & Bolts (snack mix - I had to search to find one that seemed most like nuts and bolts), Ramone's Fruit Cars (apples & grapes - easy & fun), and Lightning McQueen & Francesco Bernoiulli's Chocolate Dipsticks (I took the basic Wilton race car pretzel rod candy and added eyes and the right coloring to look like the iconic cars characters). Another fun thing that we did was to make a road table cloth. I enlisted the help of my mom who sews faster and better than I to sew a black felt strip in the center to the black & white check and then to sew yellow ribbon road lines down the middle. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of just it. We made 2 roads, one for the main Flo's Table and then just a road strip for the Cozy Cone table on top of an orange base. They turned out so great!

BTW - the kit that I used to make the Flo's food labels is a retro kit called retrO from Oscraps.

I loved this idea that I found to have Fillmore's Organic Fuel. I emptied 2 water jugs and filled one with "Anti-Freeze" (aka lemon-lime Kool-aid) and the other with "Motor Oil" (aka iced tea). Then I found racing checked duct tape and covered the labels of water bottles. Fun and easy!

I had plans to make these things more 'fleshed' out. I was actually going to make specific game areas for Luigi's & Tow Maters. I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how the Mater sign turned out. It was really easy to cut out a tan foam core board, age it with brown, and then add the white paint outline. The tires are just black foam. Luigi's Leaning Tower of Tires was a last minute addition and a HUGE hit to the party itself. I found these blow-up tires are Dollar Tree and bought 12. The kids had such a blast just stacking, rolling, jumping on and every other way of playing with blow-up tires. WAY worth the $12! I sent each of the kids home with one, too ;)

For the treat table, I had a blast. My kiddos helped me to transform out Cone drink holders into Cozy Cone hotel rooms. I found instructions on the Disney site to do it to regular cones and adjusted to what I already had on hand. They were the perfect decorations to set the mood for this table.

I saw this cute idea to take terra cotta pots painted orange to serve treats on and just knew that I needed to do it. This took 3 coats of orange spray paint. I tried gluing the tiers together, but they did not stay glued. Obviously, I used the wrong adhesive, but I didn't have any problems with the server. For the cupcakes, I found this scrumptious recipe for Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes and wanted to serve them (keeping the orange cone theme) . I made the little cones for the top easily with orange marshmallow fondant.

Every time, we are in Disneyland, my husband eats his weight in popcorn and of course, they added a special Cone location for "Popcone", so I wanted to include it. I found this antique Pepsi crate and wanted to use it to hold my cones. I made the cones from orange construction paper and filled with popcorn. I sort of mis-judged the size of the cones and the are a little too wide - oh well.

I also wanted to include a more traditional flavor, so I made my Bavarian Bliss cupcakes (Bavarian Cream-filled white Cupcake with Buttercream Icing). I made Route 66 fondant toppers and some Speed Limit 3 paper signs to top them. I added an extra couple of flags on my white cupcake stand that looks retro, so it fits perfectly for the theme.

It all looked great. I had wanted to make the Cozy Cone sign for over it, but ran out of time.

Last, but not least, the favors were pretty simple. I collected inexpensive cars, stickers, and small logo items. Included an extra chocolate dipped pretzel rod and they got to take home an inflatable tire.