Circus/Clown Party -2yr- Calliope Background Music

Circus/Clown Party 2 year-

To start the Big Top fun for my 2 year old Bradley's Circus Party I got circus themed stationary and borrowed a previous BirthdayPartyIdeas.com idea "Step Right up and Join the Fun, Bradley's Big Top Circus will be the Best One!" Our invite was mailed in a decorative mailing tube and included a red sponge clown nose(Oriental Trading Company).

The theme colors were primary red, yellow and blue. I took solid colored red, yellow, blue party hats and glued right down the middle three red craft cotton pom pom balls on the hats for clown hats for each child.

The goodie bags were the same solid, red, yellow, blue gift bags and contained a small cellophane bag of cotton candy,a small pack of crayons, circus bubbles and circus animal masks like a lion or elephant(OTC)a clown to color that said I'm BoBo Bradley's favorite clown, and a toddler sized toothbrush sealed in plastic(for the cotton candy).

We served hotdogs, wings fruit tray, cheese cubes, veggie tray and had a circus themed cake. I made cupcakes and decorated with clown faces and I made ice cream clowns take a scoop of ice cream, top with a sugar cone and take spray icing in different colors and make eyes, nose, smile and then put three icing buttons on the cone and a icing pom pom on top of cone for circus clown hat!(big hit).

It was raining so everything was indoors and we had 17 kids. I took a huge red, yellow, blue, parachute(like gymboree) and put it on my great room floor as the Big Top or First ring of the circus, the children sat there and were entertained by the best lady clown who did a puppet show, told stories, sang songs balloon sculptures and face painted every child. The two years old's weren't afraid, she was that good!

The kids ate there and were free to make a mess because the parachute was nylon so after eating, we gathered it up and through it in the washer! We played calliope music in the background. In our garage we set up the second ring of Brad's big top.  We decorated the walls with circus cut outs, balloons and created a big top with crepe paper and plastic pennants. We moved anything dangerous out and covered the shelves with inexpensive plastic tablecloths in our theme colors.

My mother made circus characters on large poster board. We had a tight rope walker which we attached a real toddler sized umbrella to and the girls put their heads in the cut out and we took pollards of them to take. Then boys stuck their heads in the Strong man's and they got instant pictures to take.

We did a bean bag toss through the mouth of a clown and a lion. Pin the nose on the clown(dollar store). We set up a couple of craft tables for the older kids and (they guessed how many jelly beans in the jar) and the toddlers had Brad's Castle of 100 balls toy set up in the garage as well. Another game was a baby pool with floating ducks with a star on the bottom of one of 6 ducks.

Everyone got a prize whether they found the starred duck or not. I had tons of tall helium red, yellow, blue balloons throughout the inside and outside the house and garage.  In the great room on all four corners of the room and around the clown's face painting station. I found a lawn clown from a party store you stick in the ground and he says" I'm 2 today" I got a lot of circus themed decorations from dollar stores as well.

The tables for food were decorated with yellow or red table cloths and coordinated solid theme colors( plates, cups, etc) and we had two balloon center pieces with a Styrofoam cut out of a clown spray painted with blue glitter and the number 2 was the same We used a pinata in the shape of the number "two" to decorate the foyer.  Kids and adults loved it! Next year Pony rides and Cowboys stay tuned!