For my daughter's first birthday party I decided to go with the carnival theme. I started planning months ahead and researching online for ideas. Most of the items were purchased at Oriental trading.com, the dollar store and Target. I had a few people helping me set up the day before and day of the party so I didn't have much time to take pictures of all of the items I wanted to. I was so busy, it was hot and I tried to remain organized and do things as I had planned in my head. But unfortunately these things don't always go the way we plan. Overall, I have to say the party turned out nice, the kids had fun and everyone complimented me on the wonderful job I did. So here are the pics.
Here is the invitation. I made them on Snap fish and picked them up from my local Walgreens. I bought blank tickets and hand wrote "Admit One" and attached with a paper clip.
I found this helium balloon tank at Party City for $29.99. It included 50 balloons.
This 3 tier cake stand was found at Ross in the clearance section for $5.00.
I found this carnival/circus themed box at Goodwill for $1.60.
I purchased the cotton candy at Sam's Club. 8 2oz buckets for $6.00.
I found these 6 oz buckets of cotton candy at Family Dollar Store for $1.60 on clearance.
Treat Boxes found at Oriental Trading.
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| These treat boxes from Oriental Trading included lolipops, carnival stickers, a clown nose and small bag of snacks. The tags were separate and attached. |
My helpers filling the condiment bottles and cotton candy. The picnic caddy was purchased from Party City for $5.00.
Finished treat bags.
Dessert table.
Chicken on a stick.
Rainbow cupcakes. The rainbow cupcakes were made using this idea from this site found
here. I made a butter cream and cream cheese frosting and also the whipped cream and pudding frosting found on the rainbow cake site above.
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| The bigtop cupcake holder and cupcake pedestals were purchased at Oriental trading. The popcorn containers were purchased from Dollar Tree and the candy containers were purchased from Target. |
Cupcake toppers made by me!
The Birthday Girl!
Popcorn and Snowcone Machine
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| Food Tent. Menu sign made by my sister. (We didn't charge for food) |
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| Birthday Girl Zuri! |
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| The magician Matt Cadabra. The kids loved him! |
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| The ring master. |
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| My hand made birthday banner |
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| Great grandmom the clown |
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| Dessert table. Homemade and decorated cupcakes |
So here's a run down of all items as some are not pictured. We had a tattoo booth and used carnival themed tattoos from Oriental Trading.
There was a photo booth using a carnival themed photo door hanger purchased from Oriental Trading.
I purchased a Fuji Instax mini camera with 100 films for $150.00 from Amazon.com and placed them on Carnival themed photo frames from Oriental Trading.
There was a craft table for the kids to make a carnival photo frame and animal visor also purchased from Oriental Trading.
Food
Hot dogs (BJ'sand Shop Rite)
Marinated chicken breast on a stick
Hamburgers (BJ's)
Mini Corn dogs (Target Market Pantry)
Nachos and cheese (Sam's Club)
French Fries (BJ's and Sam's)
Chicken Fingers (Homemade)
Macaroni Salad (Homemade)
Cotton Candy
Popcorn
Snow cones
For food we tried to keep it simple. I originally wanted to get a hot dog roller, cotton candy machine and popcorn machine. I figured the cotton candy machine would be too much work so we did away with that idea and decided to do the cotton candy in separate bags. They were supposed to include a topper that said, "Cotton Candy" but I decided it was a bit too much. The sandwich bags worked out just fine by themselves. Since we were making chicken on a stick and hamburgers ,on the grill we decided to do away with the hot dog machine and cook those on the grill as well. The chicken fingers and fries were cooked outside using a deep fryer. The snow cone machine was to replace the hot dog machine.
