Carnival Theme Party

Well, when my daughter asked for a carnival party I was so excited!  She wanted clowns, popcorn, cotton candy, games and flying elephants!!!  While Daddy worked on getting a "flying elephant" I immediately hit Pinterest for ideas.

To me the party is all about the cake.  So I started looking at cakes on Pinterest for pinspiration.  Found many I liked, but nothing exactly what I was looking for.  I left the design up to my soon to be 6 year old and our favorite bakery, Creative Cakes in Orange, California.  Cheryl at Creative Cakes is amazing to work with.  She sat down with our Lida and together they came up with a fabulous cake -- elephants, tickets, popcorn, pendants, stars ... everything Lida wanted.  After the cake sampling we settled on marble cake with oreo filling (bottom layer for the kids) and a lemon chiffon cake with raspberry mouse and fresh raspberries (top layer for the adults).  Delish!! 

So here is the beautiful cake from Creative Cakes.  Isn't it amazing?  Elephants, tickets, popcorn ... check!  Found a hat box at Hobby Lobby and I used the Hobby Lobby app on my phone and got 40% off -- guess how much I paid for it?  $4.00! 

Here is a close up of the top layer of the cake and the candles.  Found these candles at Party City which spelled out my daughter's name for $.99 each.  I also found a #6 and extra star candles -- the matched the cake.  Who knew.  Super cute!

This is the best shot I got of the day of the cupcakes.  They probably could have been arranged better, but it is what it is.  I found a vendor on Etsy Frosting & Ink (Emily) and she made the cute cupcake toppers and wrappers.  She delivered them to me via .pdf and I sent them to my local Staples to print.  Cutting out 48 wrappers was time consuming, but the toppers were easy enough.  I used a 2" hole punch and I cut them out very quickly.  

Here is a close up of the cake toppers ... aren't they cute?  Loved them!! 

So we leave the cake and cupcakes behind and we move on to the candy buffet and party favor bar. 

I found this hutch at our local Keepsakes by Goodwill for $19!!  I purchased $8 worth of acrylic paint and transformed it into this beautiful centerpiece!  It came out amazing!  I also used the extra tickets from the games and put them about to add some whimsey.  Super cute; right?  Everyone loved it. 

Candy jars from Walmart $2.99; candy scoops from Party City $.99; and party favor boxes from Oriental Trading Co.

Closer look at the candy -- we could not have peanuts at the party because one of Lida's party guests is alergic so I purchased Spangler Marshmallow peanuts from Amazon.com (this is about 3 pounds of marshmallow peanuts). 

Barnum's Animal cookies ... gotta have these for a carnival party!   My dear friend, Anissa, purchased these for the party. 

 Before the Barnum Animal cookies I decided I wanted to make frosted elephant cookies ... I almost dropped this project, but my child was really looking forward to this cookie so I gave in and made it.  They were not to my liking, but turns out everyone loved them.  One comment from one of my daughter's cousin was, "You are the best baker in the world."  Wow!  So, here is the recipe I used (my sister found it at allrecipes.com): 

COOKIE RECIPE

 1 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 cup butter (softened)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

Mix confectioners sugar, butter, egg, vanilla and almond extract.  In a separate bowl sift dry ingredients ... flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Mix dry ingredients into wet.  Divide in half, roll to 1/4 an inch thick and cut into the desired shape (I used an elephant).  Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until light brown on the edges. Set aside to cool -- I set the cookies out for 24 hours before I iced.  To me they were on the soft-side.  I wanted them more crunchy, but the taste is really good.  The almond extract makes the cookie! 

Frosting 

1 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup milk
 1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 tsp almond extract
add desired color (I used pink)

I dipped each cookie in the pink frosting, set on a wire rack and sprinkled liberally with sprinkles I purchased from Smart & Final.  Be careful not to break the cookie when you dip it (be VERY careful!).  
 

s

My sister and I made these adorable cookies for the favor boxes. 

Favor boxes from Oriental Trading Company, Big Top Bubbles, Clown Noses, Elephant Cookie and Carnival gummies. 

Can't have carnival without cotton candy and fresh popped pop corn!  Thank God for the blessing of my cousin, Sylvia, who volunteered to run the concessions.  Thank you Sylvia!  The best thing I heard about this on the party day was from on of my neighbors ... she said, "It smells like a carnival all the way across the street."  Yay, mission accomplished! 

Making cotton candy.

One of Lida's guests enjoying the cotton candy. 

I found an AMAZING carnival themed party dress on etsy.com.  Just enough, but not too much!  Isn't it cute? 

Ruffle Neckline Circus Dress. Available in 0-3 months through Size 8 ... only $27.00!  Vendor: BabyThreadsByLiz  This dress looked EXACTLY like the picture and wore really well.  The vendor asked me for measurements so it was made to fit.  Loved this dress!  Had it in my hand 3 days from the date I placed the order.  Fast delivery!

The games were half rented and half hand made by me.  Wanted to do something fun so I searched Pinterest for something easy and came up with these awesome games: 

Ring Toss Game ... purchased Clear Coke Bottles and a few Green Bubble Up Bottles.  Clear bottles were 2 tickets and green bottles were 5 tickets.  Tickets were then dropped in a raffle box and winners were called every 10 minutes.  I thought it would be too hard for each game to have prizes for every win.  Instead we encouraged the kids to play and win tickets, drop them in the raffle and have more chances to win.  It worked.  We went through almost 1,200 tickets! 

Water Dentist ... made out of a nectarine fruit box from Costco.  Should have laminated this one so the water would not tear it up, but it lasted as long as it needed to.  Super cute! 

Fish Bowl Game

Here's cousin Ashley playing Water Dentist ... there is a better look at the Fish Bowl Game in the background.

Can Smash ... one of my neighbors who is water color artist made this backdrop for me in a flash because I ran out of gas at the end.  Too many projects.  He did a good job. 

Here is the raffle box we made for the kids to put their winning tickets into.  One of Lida's older cousins was put in charge of drawing tickets, calling them out and handing out the prizes.  The kids loved it!  If you do this make sure you buy the tickets that have double rows ... the tickets have printed "Drop This Ticket" so they know which one to drop.  Got the tickets at Oriental Trading Company  -- they come in lots of colors, but I purchased pink and orange.

Here is a picture of the games booth -- I used a 12 x 12 tent and purchased the red & white skirt from Oriental Trading Company -- I also rented two children's tables to put the games on.  Instant carnival booth.  Although, in retrospect I should have found a way to put the games inside the tent because this way my yard was cut off.  Traffic would have flowed better, but it was still ok and worked out fine. 

Boom Blasters ... these were SUPER FUN, but SUPER LOUD!  The party rental place only supplied 25 balloons, but I had many 12 inch balloons from previous party so we let the kids go to town.  OMG the balloon mess we had to pick up was crazy, but the kids had fun so that is all the matters.  Loved these, but they did scare a few of the little ones because of the loud noise. 

Pitch Burst ... is all that it implies.  It takes 2 people to run this game and you should be prepared by pre-filling the water balloons.  Well, it was a gloomy kinda day in July and no one wanted to get wet ... so, we just left the chair there and the kids had the same amount of fun hitting the target and popping the balloons -- water would fly everywhere and they got a little wet, but it was not too bad.  Fun game.  Worth the $150.00 price for the rental and much safer than a dunk tank.  I would rent this game and recommend it to anyone wanting a dunk tank alternative. 

Look at her go!!

Can't have a carnival without a muscle man high striker!  Loved this game, but it was visited by mostly boys.  Hmmmm???

See lots of fun!

Here is a picture of my front yard ... we used 6 12 x 12 tents in total.  Love the balloons which were made by my friend, Cinthya Chamberlain @ FancyFaceArt Cinthya.

Hung an old repurposed frame and some props on some trees and it made for a nice place for Lida to take pictures with her guests.

Don't forget the sign to let your guests know which way to go!  Got this at Oriental Trading Company.  Loved it!!!

Lida REALLY wanted a clown.  First, she was late!  Second, because she was late the kids had almost 30 minutes more playing the carnival games and were getting tired!  So, we sang happy birthday and blew out the candles.  By the time our clown arrived (for a 90 minute show) our guests were leaving ... we just had her paint some faces (which were in my opinion not too great), provide the kids with bubbles and called it a day.  Lida was happy she was there and that is all that matters, but I will not hire this clown again ... no joke!

None the wiser ... all the kids, including our little carnival queen, had lots of fun with the bubbles.  Good idea for future reference ... just buy the wands, put out some bubbles and call it a day! 

Can't have a party without a pinata!  OMG look, my child matches the pinata!  Totally an accident, but cute!  LOL

Candy time ... I put a bunch of biodegradable confetti into the pinata and it put a lot of color on the grass.  My sprinklers went on the next day and it was not too bad.  Within a week it was gone completely.  Good stuff. I will use it again in future pinatas.

Oh, almost forgot to share these super cute straws I made.  Found red & white paper straws online and then I found these super cute clown nose attachments at Hobby Lobby.  Only problem with these is that I had to hot glue them on the backside to keep them from sliding down the straw.  Do these in advance when you have absolutely nothing to do with your free time!  We made 150 straws. 

Our dear sweet child wanted to have people bring shoes to her party to donate to children in orphanages.  I was thinking a little closer to home so we found a local charity NEGU.org (I follow them on facebook and many of my neighbors knew Jessie ... I found out they needed socks so we asked her guests to bring socks).  She collected over 50 pairs of socks.  We are taking these to the foundation.  She is so excited to deliver the socks. 

Here is our sweetie with her invited guests.  There's her little cousin in the forefront (isn't he cute!).

 

Made fruit juice and pink lemonade.  Put them in very inexpensive containers and kept them cold with ice. 

Happy 6th Birthday Lida! We love you so very much! 

Trying to think if I forgot anything ... hmm, nope I think that covers it.  What a great party.  Everyone had lots of fun ... next year I think we'll just have a cake and call it a day.  I say that every year and then come spring we are brainstorming for a new birthday idea.  Kinda like having a baby ... you don't want one again immediately after you give birth, but then sometime around age 1 1/2 to 2 you start saying, "let's have another one."  See you next year!!!