Sunday, May 29, 2011

Circus Party

My son turned three last week, and his Circus birthday party was this past weekend! I had so much fun designing his invitations and decor! Everything turned out really "silly" and I think everyone had a great time! For 3 years now people have been telling me to write a blog about all the creative things I do for his parties but I never felt like anyone would want to read a blog so I have waited until now. Let me know if you like it.
I got the idea for the invites after I thought of all the things I would do or eat at a circus and popcorn seemed like the only thing that was easy enough to send though the mail. I bought a box of popcorn at Costco and purchased these popcorn sleeves at Micheal's Arts and Crafts. Inside the sleeve I filled with red and gold confetti and tucked the popcorn with the invite glued inside.

 The biggest hit every year is the "Candy Bar". This year since the theme was circus we used very colorful candy. To add the extra pop of color we incorporated pinwheels and spiral lollipops. We got the popcorn tins and containers from Target for $1.00. We added red clown noses and paper cone hats to the table to make sure that we added the circus element. Most of our candy is sugar free so that the mommies feel comfortable with allowing their children to splurge a bit. This table was to the left of the cake table.


 This was the 2nd "Candy Bar" that held bags of cotton candy, animal crackers,crackerjacks, plus our party favors. Instead of a plastic table cloth we used colorful gift wrap and double stick tape to cover the tables.This table has to the right of the cake table.
 The circus games were a crowd favorite! Our guest lined up to play and actually got little prizes just for playing regardless how many times they played. These games were purchased from Toys r us in the outdoor area. We used the boxes that they came in as stands for some of the games after we covered them with the same colorful gift wrap that we used to cover the tables.
 Another game used for outdoors that we used inside as a circus game. Alot of work to inflate but alot of fun.
 This was the center cake at our cake table it is vanilla butter cream on red velvet. I ordered the cake plain since the bakery didn't have any circus themed cake and used a stencil to make the decor for the top of the cake.
 Passion fruit cake with vanilla mini cupcakes. I scattered the same confetti I used in the invites on all the tables, along with some tickets that I got off a ticket roll.
 Chocolate on Chocolate with lemon mini cupcakes
 These were the party favors. We used the popcorn containers we got from Target, filled them with gift wrap for color and stability. Inside was a silly straw, lots of lollipops, a cookie cutter, playdoh, bubbles, a pinwheel, stickers, a paintbrush and a $2.00 ice cream gift card to Cold Stone Creamery.
Closer view of the favors content
We used these as some of the centerpieces for the tables. I used a vase that I purchased from the Dollar Tree and wrapped it with tickets that I got from a ticket roll. Then I inserted gift wrap for color and stability and taped in a candy pinwheel. 

With this year's birthday done....time to plan for next year! Next year's theme-Super Hero's!