My little boy turned five in August and he wanted a race car-themed birthday.

Let me throw out a disclaimer here. I’m not a soccer mom and I don’t feel like I *have to* throw big birthdays for my kids. Their birthday parties are held at home in the backyard with close family and a few neighbor kids. Honestly, I enjoy planning and preparing for their little birthday parties. I also realize that the older they get the more simple that their birthdays will too. At least as far as the decorations and themes go. But you only turn five once, so here we go.

One of my favorite aspects of birthday parties is finding creative and hands-on ways to DIY it. I started searching for Nascar checkered paper and fabric to make homemade flags and decorations but I couldn’t find anything to DIY. So I relinquished control and decided to find premade alternatives for cheap. I had to wait a little longer since a lot of it shipped from China but it was worth it.

Nascar flags and decor- These were all that I used to decorate and doubled in the kids’ little gift bags.

Wind up cars- These were also really cute for the price and were used in the gift bags and to decorate the table and cupcakes. There were so many leftover that they ended up all over my house and I finally had to make one large “mysterious disappearance” of them.

Checkered tape- I only used a half of a roll of this and still have another full one. I love this tape. Perfect for rainy days when you can stretch it across your floor and have Matchbox races.

Miniature checkered toothpicks- Super cute for birthday cupcakes. There were tons leftover that I added to my creative baking supplies.

Leif wanted a store bought cake and cupcakes this year. I bought a simple 9” round with extra cupcakes and added in the embellishments from the supplies. My grocery store also sells gold coins which I added to the cupcakes as well.

His cake’s orange race car slide was made from a marshmallow fondant recipe and bright orange food coloring. It turned out kind of sad but served it’s purpose and Leif seemed to like it. I made the recipe the stretched, rolled it out, and molded it into a loopity slide shape and carved out a flames shape. I let those things sit out to dry and harden. I also tried to make some orange cones and his name but that was a pretty hard fail too, haha. Cake decorator, I am not!

The kids had an abundance of treats and played happily with the racing flags and wind up cars all evening.

And this little boy got his ninja costume and promptly crashed (from sugar possibly?) not long after the guests left. All-in-all I would say he had a fun birthday!