DIY "Cars" Party Pit Passes

My fourth blog post about Logan's Cars 3rd birthday party is something fun to do if you have time and I thought it added a special something for Logan and his guests. After arriving at the party, all of the kids received a "Pit Pass" with their name and photo on it. These were created in Microsoft Word and printed on white card stock. The photos were either ones that I had and could make color copies of or pictures I got them from the parents through email or Facebook (with permission first, of course). Some of them I scaled down in Paint before printing them and cutting them to fit into the boxes. (I did this the old fashioned way with scissors and a paper trimmer since I didn't want to frustrate myself with trying to fit them into the boxes electronically before printing each Pit Pass.)

This checkered flag border clip art is what I used to frame the pit passes. I sized it so that two would fit on the page. For the Lightning McQueen image in the top center, I used this clip art I found online. The wording at the top, "Logan's 3rd Birthday" is done in Magneto font, since this is the closest one I could find to looking like the Cars logo font. I used the Word Art feature in Microsoft Word to arc it over the Lightning McQueen image. The first of the three text boxes is for the date, which is printed in red Calibri font and then I added the date of the party in black Magneto font. The second text box says name (red Calibri) and then I personalized each one with black Magneto (as large as it would allow without dropping down to the next line, which varied depending upon the length of the name). For the text box on the right, I decided to have the words face a different direction. I have no clue why other than I thought it was visually interesting. (For the record, I don't know what an actual pit pass looks like, so this whole project is my version.) I wrote the theme of the party, "Welcome Race Fans!" in red Magneto and then PIT PASS in larger black lettering (Calibri). The trophy image with checkered flags is clip art found here.The Piston Cup logo was another clip art image that I scaled to fit onto the banner of the trophy clip art. Then, I made an oval with a number 3 (in Magneto font) and placed it onto the center of the trophy to make it fit with Logan's birthday party.

The finished size is about 6" x 3 1/2". After gluing the photos (printed on plain white computer paper) onto the card stock, I "laminated" each pit pass with two pieces of clear Con-tact paper, and then hole punched them. Lastly, I strung them with black lanyard and the little metal lanyard clips, which I bought at Michael's. I got one spool of black lanyard material and 12 clips for around $3 and this was enough for all the kids at the party (plus my big kid -- the adult one, I mean, who was identified as my "Pit Crew" -- and one for myself the "Crew Chief.") After pricing out actual lanyards, I knew that this was going to save me money, and it didn't add that much time to the project. Overall, I was pleased with how the pit passes turned out, and I thought they were a nice touch for the party theme.