Boston Red Socks -4yr- Baseball Carnival

My four year old is in love with the Boston Red Sox.  I wanted to give him a carnival birthday party, so I combined the two ideas. 

The invitation looked like a popcorn container with popcorn sticking out of it.  When you pulled out the popcorn, you found the information.  I first found a picture of popcorn with the red box on google images.  From this, I was able to delete the box by resizing the picture.  Then I centered the invitation to read Step Right Up and Join the Fun  It’s Andrew’s   4th Birthday (I imported the logo of the Red Sox here) Party  We hope you’ll come!!!!Games, prizes, tattoos, a clown, and more  Popcorn, Cake, ice cream, treats galore!Date:  Where:Andrew’s Fairgrounds (address) Time:Please R.S.V.P by September 9th ,Ring Masters (parents' names) Remember to bring your ticket Please feel free to wear your Red Sox shirt.   I then made the box by drawing red thick lines on Word. 

I then put the word popcorn in the middle.  I folded the paper in half and glued on the edges except for the top.  The popcorn invitation was then placed inside the paper box.  The tricky part was making sure only the popcorn part of the invitation hangs out of the box.  I had to play around with this but it helps to center the words under the popcorn and cut around the words.  When you get to the popcorn, you are cutting a wider amount (which is bigger than the box). I also made admission tickets to his party on tag board.  This was placed in the invitation.  I used small manilla envelopes to mail them.  I like to make labels using the theme.  On the return address, I put my son's name and the logo of the Red Sox World Champions.  On the sender's address was the Red Sox logo.       

Every carnival game had to be about the Red Sox.  I first went to Staples and had them enlarge "Wally the Green Monster".  This was a coloring sheet of him from MLB website on the kids section.  He is the Red Sox's mascot.  I did find out that you can have him come to your birthday party but it was very expensive.  I then colored him in and glued him on a refridgerator box.  To find boxes, I was able to contact Best Buy's warehouse (located in my town).  They have lots of boxes.  You could just contact your local appliance place and have them hold one for you.  My husband then cut out his mouth and made a side door on the box.  I then bought at a pet store, toy hot dogs and hamburgers.  The kids had to Feed Wally the Green Monster.  The side door made it easier to get the toys after they threw it into Wally.  I also used Wally for thank you notes, see below.      

Another game was Feed Damon's Ducks.  At Iparty, I was able to find an inflatable Fenway Park (it is small).  I bought little mini ducks and placed them in the water.  On the ducks, I drew with a red sharpie the Red Sox shirt.  I put Johnny Damon's number, 18, on the ducks backs.  I also gave every duck a beard and long hair (black sharpie).  On the bottom of every duck was a number.  This number showed how many tickets the children would win.  One duck had a red dot.  This meant they received a home run!     Green Monster Lollipops was another game.  I had found on Google image, a good picture of the "Green Monster" (the scoreboard).  I then hot glued this to a rectangle piece of green styrofoarm.  On the bottom of lollipops, I either colored it red, blue, or left it the same.  I them made a poster showing three different circles in the colors of white, red, and blue and how many tickets they were worth.  I made blue the hardest to get by only make a few but giving it the most tickets.      

Papi's Batting was next.  This is named after David Ortiz who is a great baseball hitter.  I found on Google image, pictures of Red Sox balls.  I copied this onto photo paper.  On the back of the circles, I wrote Run, Ball, Foul and Homerun.  I also put a paper clip on the circles.  I found a mini Red Sox bat and drilled a small hole through it.  The bat then was strung with a nylyon string and strong magnet.  The kids would basically go fishing for the circles.  The ticket depended on which circle they picked up.       

Schilling's Pitch was another game.  I bought at Iparty, soft Red Sox balls.  I covered three empty Pringle containers with red paper.  I put the Red Sox's B (used label paper so I would have to glue it) on every container.  The containers were then stack into a pyramid of three.  The kids had to knock it down using the balls.       

Tic Tac Toe was made out of using a box and putting cardboard sections in it (making it 9 squares).  My six year old and four year old painted it blue.  They had a blast and were busy while I was painting the Ticket Booth.  I bought at a dollar store, three soft fuzzy baseball dog toys.  They had to try to get tic tac toe.    On oriental trading, I bought an inflatable catcher and small mini balls.  We called this Varitek catches.         

Shoot It was a game that consisted of ping pong balls, water gun, and water bottles.  I used a sharpie and decorated the ping pong balls to look like baseballs.  I also put a Red Sox baseball sticker covering the water co.'s name.  The sticker was made from label paper and an image from google.  The bottles were emptied and the balls were placed on it.  There were two bottles so the kids could play against each other if they wanted.  Each was given a water gun and they had to shoot the ping ball off.  This was fun but needed a one on one person to man this booth.   I had another game that was throwing into the shapes and you received points.  This was a borrowed game from a friend.  I also had a t-ball stand set up so they could just hit if they wanted to.      

The ticket booth was a refridgerator box with the middle cut out to look like a window.  My husband also cut the top to look like an awning.  He has made a back door for someone to enter in it.  He put a dowel in the middle so the tickets could go on it.  For saftey, he put duct tape on the ends of it, so nobody would get hurt.  On the awning, I made stripes of red, blue, and white.  I used acrylic paint found at ACMoore.  On the bottom of the box and the front edges (around the awing), I glued Red Sox wrapping paper on it.  On the other sides of the boxes, I painted it red, blue, and white.  On the awning, I typed the words tickets using a Boston Red Sox font( found by googling it).  The letters were printed on white label paper so I could just peel and stick.  I also had bought a picture of a red sox ball and taped that under the word tickets.      

Before the party, I took a digital picture of my son wearing a Red Sox hat and shirt.  I then shrunk the picture and printed it on label paper.  Every picture was then cut out and put on money.  I bought pretend money at a dollar store.  I only used the $1, 5, and $20.  For every child, I made up a ziploc baggie filled with a $1, 5, and $20 of Andrew's fake money.  Theier name was on the bag.   They would use the money to buy the following.  The $1 was for popcorn.  I had rented a popcorn machine.  At oriental trading, I bought a blue baseball necklaces.  This would cost $5.  I also bought white baseball hats at o.t.  I  ironed on the Red Sox logo on every hat.  This would cost $20.  I covered a box with Red Sox paper and attached a string.  This went around my neck.  I put the hats in the box and yelled "Hats for Sale."   We also had a tatoo section.  Half way thru the carnival games, the clown showed up and did face painting.        

When the children came, they handed my six year old son (who was manning the ticket booth their ticket).  He handed them a bunch of red tickets from the dowel and their money.  I informed the parents that it didn't matter how many tickets, the children won because at the end they would all receive the same thing.  When a child won a game they receive a different color tick, blue.  Matt had so much fun doing this.  The younger kids also had a chance to go inside.       

The games went so well because I had a lot of family members to run it.  It would have been more difficult if they weren't around.    

I decorated the tables with a baseball tableclothes and found Red Sox party goods at Bob's.  In the middle of the table was a hard box of popcorn and I had Red Sox Mylar balloons coming from it.  There were also baseball helium ballons at every game so they knew where to go.  The cake was decorated with the Red Sox logo and I had bat candles on it.  Evey child was given a plastic Red Sox baseball cup filled with a hoodsie.  I got these cups from Ground Round.  They cost around $.60 each.  It was a cute touch but not needed.  I had to remind everybody to take their's home      

The clown went very well.  The kids loved her.  For a special treat, my two sons put on a mini magic show after the clown went on.  They actually have professional tricks and did a wonderful job.       

The goodie bags consisted of the mini balls (found on O.T.), a baseball pencil with "Andrew's Carnival" on it, a pad of baseball paper (O.T.) and a box of pretzels.  The children also had their necklace and baseball cap.        

For thank you notes, I cut out the rest of Wally's head and had every child put his head through it.  I took a digital picture of everyone and put it on a card for each individual child.  I also thought of making baseball cards of each child but you run out of time.      Everyone had a wonderful time.  People called me the next day to say it was the best party they ever went to.  The best part was when my son said that he loved his party.  This is what makes it worth it.