Hot Wheels -5yr- Welcome Race Fans

My 5 year old decided he wanted a Hot Wheels party.  So I converted the back yard into a race track. 

First we spray painted the lawn to form a track all around the yard to race cardboard box cars.  I made several different brightly painted boxes equiped with windshields and painted numbers.  We added paper plate wheels with the gold fastener to hold them to the boxes and added string to hold them up on the kids shoulders. 

The yard had several orange construction cones along with "START" and "FINISH" cardboard signs on stakes.  There was even a "PIT STOP" area where some of the older kids sat to fill up the cars or change a tire.  I put out our LIttle Tikes gas pump and garage work station with lift for the pit area. 

The rest of the yard was decorated with large tires covered with black and white table cloths to use for tables.  We used them for appetizers and present opening too.  Checkered flags were all over the yard along with black and white balloons.  I had a hot wheels pinata as well as a working traffic light that we rigged up with extension cord as they passed thru the race track.  One large tire was leaning against the fence which was the water balloon throwing area. 

The kids were able to try to shoot the balloons thru the tire.  Anything water related...they love!  There were lots of other decor as well where I painted flat cardboard cars to hang on the fences to dress up the yard too. 

I also found a large banner that read "WELCOME RACE FANS". I layed our large rug (that has the race track printed on it) along with all the hot wheels cars to let the kids play on the rug too. My son wore a Hot Wheels shirt and I found a inexpensive racing helmet at the party store. The party store also carried a full line of Hot Wheels plates, cups and napkins too.  

The food consisted of hot dogs (with added olive wheels) racing pasta salad(found a company online that sells pasta shaped like checkered flags and race cars), cheese slices (cut with a cookie cutter shaped like a car), beef stick (looked like wheels when sliced), Hot wheels gummies, race car shaped cookies, jello jigglers also cut with the car shaped cookie cutter and a watermelon that I carved to look like a car (had found baby carriage on line and imprevised by adding grapefruit wheels, just cut them in half and add a cherry for the middle, I cut a spoiler from the remaining watermelon and attached to the top of the watermelon with a wooden skewer and just filled with fresh fruit.) 

The cake was 2 horse shoe molds put end to end to form a race track oval.  Just frost the track black and the edges green for grass and add a "finish line".  I used actual hot wheels cars to place directly on the cake. 

I think the best part of the party when we had an actual sprint car brought to the party from an uncle.  He trailered the car into the side yard and unloaded it so all the kids could sit in the driver seat and have their picture taken.  The dads loved this part just as well as the kids did! 

As you can imagine…all gifts were Hot Wheels related so make sure you set aside a lot of time to assemble them!  This party ranks right up there with the best ones we've had, mainly because it appealed to lots of different ages!  I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!