Carnival Party - Ping Pong Ball Toss

This year for my son's birthday party we did a carnival theme.  I also come to this site and get wonderful ideas for parties. I started planning in April but the party took place in December.  We rented out our local church's fellowship hall for the party. 

The invitations were made on cards that we got from the scrapbooking section.  We made the bottom of the ticket booth in kraft paper and we also made the 2 poles in the same thing we used the dimensional double stick pads to lift them slightly.  The top of the booth was made in swirly wrapping paper and we used a glue stick to apply the top.  We bought the tiny clothespins, tickets and party foam cut out stickers from Walmart. We wrote in marker "TICKET BOOTH" on the kraft paper and on the top of the ticket booth we used the tiny clothespins to attach the tickets that we told the kids to bring at the door. 

As the children arrived they received a sandwich bag filled with 10 tickets for games and food, kandy kart and face painting coupon.  We rented a popcorn machine and a sno cone machine the rentals were $45 each.  We ordered bags of cotton candy from rainbowcottoncandy.com.  The one ounce bags were the perfect serving for everyone.  A case of 60 was only $21 and shipping wasn’t bad either especially because we had to rush the cotton candy to my home.  I procrastinated on my delivery orders. 

The popcorn machine that we rented had the best popcorn that any of the parents have every tasted.  It was just right the amount of butter and salt lol.  The sno cone machine was a hit as well.  At the food station we served hotdogs with all the trimmings, fries, pizza rolls, chicken nuggets, macaroni salad, green salad, fruit and veggie tray, chocolate fountain (which I didn’t know how to run well my girlfriend had to fix it up for me haha).  I tried to have food that the children and parents will eat as well.   I will also list where I bought my supplies, I planned the party early but somehow I still had a lot of loose ends to tie up.  Since procrastinating with my deliveries I got a lot of my supplies from Walmart, the Dollor Store and Party City.  I probably saved on shipping anyway lol. But a good place and inexpensive place to find toys in bulk is smalltoys.com 

The games we had a ping pong toss, I had scrap wood from the floors we installed in my home a couple of months earlier.  We glued 16 small cups to the board about 2 inches apart from each other.  Each kid received 3 ping pong balls to get in the cup.  If they got one ball in they got one ticket, 2 balls-2tickets and 3 balls-3tickets. I got the ping pong balls from Walmart 6balls for $1.44. The cups you can get from the dollar store they are the little I think 3ounce cups the dentists cups.  Ring toss we made the same way on scrap wood.  I got the idea to use kool aid juices from this website.  I glued 9 bottles on the wood using different colors for variety.  The same rules applied they received 3 rings and if they got 1 ring around the juice they got one ticket etc., The rings we found at party city and they you get 12 for less than $2. 

Flying Disk toss.  I found the flying disks guns at walmart for .88 each and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with them yet but I just bought them and figured if I didn’t find a game to use it for I could give it away as a prize.  We covered a box in wrapping paper and cut 5 holes out and let the kids try to shoot the disks in the holes.  Same ticket rules apply.  The Balloon Darts.  That was a huge hit.  I couldn’t leave my station kids kept lining up for this game.  We blew up the balloons and had a big garbage bag of balloons under the table for refills. I bought a cork board from Walmart $7 and attached the small balloons with tacks gave the kids 3 darts and the kids had to pop them.  The same ticket rules apply.  The darts were also purchased at Walmart for $1.28 for 3 

The lollipop pull game and guess how many were on the same table.  The kids that guessed the amount of jelly beans were in the candy jar won the jar which could be a gift for the parent.  Also we had guess how many M &M's.  Dig for gold.  We used easter egg grass and gold coins from my sons pirate birthday party that took place 2 years ago. :-) We wrapped another box up with wrapping paper and cut a hole out.  They had to see how many coins they could find in 30 seconds.  We had Bingo but we never played it and also pin the nose on the clown.  We had a prize redemption center which was easier, we let the kids collect all the tickets from the games and we counted them out and they choose prizes in their category.  We had small prizes for 1-10 tickets, medium prizes for 11-20 tickets and the bigger prizes for the 21 and more tickets.   

We also had a kandy kart.  I bought numerous candy containers that I found in the dollar store and filled them up with candy.  We really sugared the kids up good.  We had giant pixy sticks, ring pops, tootsie rolls, jolly ranchers, tootsie pops, sour patch straws, twizzlers, and more I cant remember.  I tried to use nostalgic candy to remind the parents of the carnivals that we used to go to.  They all received one or a few of everything.  Oh I almost forgot I made candy apples as well. The candy apples were a hit with parents especially the ones from New York.  We used to get them from the grocery store and the bottoms had coconut on them.  I made enough for the parents and the kids.  We had about 40 kids wow!!!! 

We had a clown that entertained the kids for a while she made balloon animals and things.  I had my brother an artist do the face painting.  For cake we had cupcakes i made chocolate, yellow and red velvet letting the kids choose which they wanted.  The party was a success and the kids and the parents had so much fun they said that was the best birthday party that they have ever been to.  My neighbor/friend said that she didnt put that much thought into her wedding lol.  Needless to say now I am thinking about starting a party planning business.  I have my first client in May, she is a friend of mine from my son's bus stop and I am doing it free of charge for pictures and acknowledgement.  I am so excited I will live on this website soon giving and recieving ideas and inspiration.  This is such a good website I always get good ideas on what to do for my family.  Lets not just make it a party, Lets make it an event! Thats my motto lol. ENJOY!