Race Car Birthday

For my sons 3rd birthday, he'd been telling me he wanted a race car Birthday. I came up with this as the invite and knew I wanted to try to theme the entire party around race cars.  This is really the first time I've ever thrown a theme party before.  Guess I'd better get used to it now!

I had thought long and hard about how in the world I could do a fun race car cake.  I didn't want to do just a race car, but, I'd seen on google a few track cakes and I loved them.  But I am NOT a cake maker!  I called around and got some estimates on cake, all of which were way too high to spend on a 3 year olds cake, IMO.  So I thought, maybe I can do this.  I've tried to make a double layer sheet cake in the past, it was a disaster, so I had our local grocery store make me a chocolate sheet cake with no frosting.  I'm sure they've had stranger requests.

I had found at the store something new Duncan Hines Amazing Glazes, just microwave and pour onto your favorite dessert.  From the photo on the bottle, it looked like it would be the perfect smooth surface for my road.  Because I knew I didn't want to deal with fondant, I don't like the taste, and black fondant with 3 year olds would be MESSY!!  I poured on the Glaze, let it sit up and free-handed my 3.  I didn't glaze the entire cake, only where I wanted my road to be.  

Next up was the daunting task of grass.  I didn't want to smear on a flat green frosting, I wanted it to look like real grass.  Little did I know, that this would be the longest part!  I believe it took me around 2.5 hours to frost my cake with my grass.  I had made homemade frosting, so it was all ready for me.  I used a frosting bag with a star tip on it, to give me the grass look I wanted.  The top is what took me the most time, I wanted each to be its own grass, on the sides, I did rows of grass.  The sides took me no time at all.  I also added the road dashes with a basic white can of frosting using a round tip.                     

I let my son pick out the cars he wanted to showcase on his cake the day before.  Of course, he picked some pretty cool cars!  I had also made a checkered flag for the finish line and the 3 candles were red, yellow & green.  

I didn't get all crazy with decorating the rest of the party, I'd had big idea's but decided it wasn't about those small details.  I had made him a banner on a checkered flag ribbon and gotten orange cups (I thought they looked like cones)  and our plates were yellow, green, and red.  Plus, who doesn't love balloons!   

Waiting to blow out his candles.  

For thank you gifts, I decided on some crayon caddies from Two Little Monkies with a Matchbox car in the band on the outside (I didn't photograph them, sorry, but here are the Caddies from her site) & I made a thank-you note to thread through the band as well.  

My son loved the party, and while it wasn't the full out theme party I had originally thought about, it was just perfect for us!