Circus Carnival 5-8yr - Stop Clowning Around

I started planning this about 5 months in advance. Both of my kids were born in May. Since my husband & I have big families we always try to do their b-days together. They turned 5 & 8. This year we went with a circus/carnival theme party. I rented my church pavilion just in case it rained. It was perfectly surrounded by big trees so it wasn't too hot and perfectly shaded.

The invitation was a circus tent that read "Cotton candy, snow cones & candy apples taste great. Come & join the fun because Samantha's turning 8!!! We'll have a clown, games & lot's of pony rides. Let's not forget that little Jose is also turning 5!!!. I printed the wording on the computer. Then I folded the cardstock paper in half & drew a tent. Cut it out w/scissors & on the front of the invitation I made red stripes with a red marker. It also had a clown holding balloons at the entrance of the tent that said "stop clowning around & join us under the big top" They are time consuming but real cute.

First try sticking to certain colors. I had blue, yellow, red & green. I really wanted the kids to have the best time they ever had so I made clown collars for them out of felt material & glue colored sequence all around to make them shiny. We had red, blue, yellow, green & white. I also bought clown noses (oriental trading) & different color hair spray (party city) so as the kids got there I painted their hair & dressed them up. Of course I also made party hats for them. I found a perfect colored stripped wrapping paper, that matched my colors at Target & made my hats out of that. I had several games lined up for the kids to play & a huge box full of prizes (from $ store) for them to get after each game. I had bubble wands set up for the  kids. They enjoyed making huge bubbles. I made some scrunggies for the girls, some with my theme colors & some girly colors too & attached a tag that read "thank you for coming to Samantha & Jose's b-day party."

For the boys I printed out different animals from the circus, a boy turning 5, a girl turning 8, tent, pop corn, etc. & made my own coloring book that read Samantha & Jose's Circus Coloring Book & attached a crayon box to each one bought at the dollar store. For decorations I made balloon trees that were about 5ft tall & placed them in the entrance for people to go through. Once at the pavilion I had a kids tent that I found at Walgreens for the kids to go through. Lucky for me it was yellow, blue, green & red. I hung a banner that I made for the kids & decorated it with HUGE flowers that I made out of crepe paper. They have the large size paper at Hobby Lobby.

Each table was covered with my theme colors. For centerpieces I made balloon topiaries. Since each topiary takes 12 balloons I used 4 of each color & they came out so cute & colorful. I got lots of compliments on those as well. Also I had styrofoam clowns from my mom's store, glued a balloon stick to it, attached some balloons & placed it on a another piece of styrofoam. In front of the clown I glued one of those fish bowls you find at the $ store & filled them up with bubble gum balls. To cover the styrofoam I used colorful wrapping tissue. If anyone wants to see pictures e-mail me & I will be more than happy to send them to you. I also had white & yellow metal pails that I found at Target for a dollar around Easter time. I actually drew red, blue & green balloons & dots with markers so they could match. I placed wrapping tissue inside of those & filled them up with skittles.

Also I made a lollipop tree, & two other candy trees. One was a gum drop tree & the other was a gum ball tree. My husband & I rented a cotton candy machine, snow cone machine & a pop corn machine. And although we looked every where for candy apple mix we could not find any. So the night before I had several friends come over & together we made candy apples. We actually made the candy apple mix. I bought 10 lbs of sugar, light corn syrup & red hot candies. For food we decided to go with burgers, hot dogs & nachos. We had plenty of water, juices & different types of sodas so everyone could have different choices. We had 2 pi±atas, a clown & a hot air balloon.

For party bags I actually made 3 different types that were all made out of craft foam & filled them up with candies. I had a lion, clown & an elephant. CUTE, CUTE, CUTE.  I think the parents liked them more than the kids. Of course no carnival or circus party is a party w/o a clown. I hired a clown for 2 hours. First hour for his magic show & the other he made balloon characters for the kids. He actually stuck around for 1/2 an hour more just playing swords with the kids. After he was finished the ponies arrived. I hired 4 ponies for 2 hours. You can imagine how much fun the kids were having.

And last but not least the cake. My sister was in charge of that. She has been baking cakes since she was 12. This year she made a 3-tier cake (which I also have pictures of) It was a two 16" chocolate on bottom w/strawberries & strawberry filling, then two 12" vanilla on top with same type of filling & finally two 8" yellow cake on top of that one. She made a tent to go on the very top & had lots of clown underneath it. The cake was whip cream & had clowns everywhere. We bought a Happy Birthday sign that goes on the cake & it actually played the song. We also bought a small elephant, tiger, lion & bear. It was beautiful!!!!! I made 2 spiral balloon columns & placed them next to the cake for decorations on the cake table.

This party was a hit with the kids & the parents as well. Even several days later I was still getting calls from people telling me their kids would not stop talking about it. I will say there were several other ideas I had in mind that I didnt do because I ran out of time. It was also real time consuming but worth every glue gun burn & back ache I got. I will never forget how happy our kids were that day. After all their b-days are only once a year so why not!!!! If anyone wants to see pictures e-mail me & will be more than happy to send you some.