A Carnival Birthday Party

Birthday themes are the foundation of a great birthday party. There's something people love about themes! So many themes to choose from - how do you choose? Based on age, type of attendee community, and your child's interests, a theme should come to light easily enough. At first, we wanted to do a Monster High theme, because we found these great centerpieces at a garage sale. But, the strong, non-natural "image" focus doesn't work as well for our attendee community which has a Waldorf-focus. This year we had a carnival theme for my 10-year old's birthday party, which fit Lexi's interests and accommodated the Waldorf desire for more natural images. It was a lot of fun pulling everything together for this theme. My mom made these great invitations with an "admit one-type" ticket that you would use to get into a carnival. Including cute carnival pictures and the information needed to come to the party in the ticket format was a fun way to invite people to the event.

Selecting the decorations is usually one of the funnest parts of designing a birthday. I had a couple different decorative themes selected, and finally decided to go w/ the one that, while a little more expensive, had the characters wearing "more" than "less". We love elephants in this family so going with the elephant plates (while a tad juvenile for age 10) was a fairly easy decision. My daughter loved the seal playing with the ball; the cups had a nice variety of images in smaller circles. Most of the paper decorations were Party Partner Designs with the best price found on Amazon. Good 'ole Amazon.

We used a Barnum Bailey elephant for decoration that we have as part of our eBay store sales (newfoundtreasures2014). It added just the right touch to the overall theme. I was so fortunate to find popcorn holders at the $1 store. I had been looking online for the popcorn holders, where I find most everything, but they were out of stock. So, running across them at the $1 store in my final shopping run was such a great "find" and steal. The favor bags we purchased matched the cups. I got 100 favors off eBay for the best price purchased from Blue Marble Products, and the kids absolutely loved picking through the various toys. I was a little worried the kids, at this age, would see the stuff as "junk" but they had fun playing with the items, so if it was only for entertainment at the party, it was well worth it.

One of our favorites was the "big top" cupcake holder. It was easy to put together, and held just enough cupcakes. We picked up some multi-colored streamers and paper lanterns to pull all the decor together in a colorful and fun display.

Selecting the games was a little more challenging, but we finally landed on the five or so games that we thought would add just the right amount of fun. First, we had the "standard" count the jelly beans in a jar, except we used bubble gums, because that seemed a little more carnival to us. We made a quick game sheet and a sign for the bubblegums. We picked up the bubblegums at the $1 store and used two different sizes. The winner got to take home the jar of bubble gums.

The ping pong game (like the ping pong fish toss at the fair) was a big hit. I was able to pick up over one hundred ping pong balls for less than $10 from Mizz Starr on Amazon. The cups were 9-ounce multi-colored plastic, and they worked perfectly. A few got knocked over, but for the most part, they stayed upright. We gave everyone 15 balls, and the highest # was the winner.

Our make-shift coin toss game was very homemade, but it was decorated so well and customized to my daughter, Lexi, that you couldn't help but see its cuteness. We filled in points on the sheet within the circles, and then the kids added up how many points they got from five tries of tossing pennies.

We also bought these really fun swirl lollipops that looked so "carnival". This was also a game, with one lollipop having a black bottom. Whomever pulled that lollipop won the prize. The lollipops were put into styrofoam. And everyone got to keep their lollipops which were quite popular.

We had a game sheet for the kids to keep track of their numbers for the coin toss and the ping pong game. The game sheet also had spaces for the kids to write in their answers for the six items that were inside the mystery box. The mystery box was also a big hit, with everyone doing fairly well at their guesses. Although, it's best to clarify up front that each kid gets one pass at feeling for all six items. Ours was easier because everyone felt for the items as many times as they wanted.

And what would be a carnival party without the lion pinata? The lion made such a great decoration as well. We had rainbow-colored mattes underneath the pinata so when all the kids jumped for the candy, they wouldn't hurt themselves. They were definitely a nice addition cause the kids did make a huge heap getting access to the candy when the bottom part of the lion flew.

We had the party after lunch, so the food was finger-food. What would be a carnival without the corn dogs, popcorn, and pretzels? I made the pretzels using a Fleischmann's pre-made package, and it was easy to follow. They really tasted like soft pretzels you get at any pretzel stand (possibly better).

I also made some fun fruit on sticks. I had a cookie cutter shaped like a flower so I put that on the top of the stick with grapes and a strawberry on the bottom. These went pretty fast.

And, of course, we had to have the animal crackers. I really wanted the standard animal crackers, but they were pricier than my budget. I was fortunate again to make this "find" at the $1 store. So, for $4 I got all these animal crackers. They probably didn't taste as good, but decoratively they worked great.

My sister made the cupcakes, and Lexi got her own mini-cake. Here's a close-up of the "big top" cupcake holder. It added so much to the decor. Overall, everyone said the party was a hit. The blend of decorations, food, and games made for a great carnival party!