Circus Party -2yr- Balloon Animal Making Clown

Circus Party-2 year old - For my daughter's 2nd birthday we had a circus themed party.  A local park district in our area has great facilities that can be rented for private parties for a reasonable price.  We rented their "Carousel Room" which features a 28-foot carousel in the middle of a room surrounded by tables.  Along with the carousel (which both the kids and adults were able to ride) there was also an indoor playground that had mazes, tunnels, a spiral slide and a ball pit.  The park district had 2 employees on duty (one to operate the carousel, the other to supervise the indoor playground).  We had about 25 adults and 12 kids.  The party was for 2 hours (plus they give you a half hour to set up and another half hour to clean up).  I did most of the other shopping for the party on the internet and at dollar stores. 

For invitations - I ordered circus themed invitations with matching envelopes that had the circus big top tent with circus animals.  Inside the bigtop we had printed "Friends of the Circus Have Gathered to Say Please Join us to Celebrate _______ 2nd Birthday! along with all the details of the party.  I found this verse on an invitation website.  I ordered partyware called "Clownin Around" which featured a clown and circus animals in primary colors(found on shindigz.com). 

From this theme, I ordered the matching desert plates, napkins, table cloth, centerpiece, thank you notes and clown stickers.  For the kid's table we used the tablecloth and centerpiece (which was a circus bigtop in red/yellow/blue papermache with circus animals). 

At each place setting we had a red paper placemat.  On each placemat I put a circus themed activity/coloring book and crayons (which I found on clearance at a local party store) along with a box of animal crackers and invidual bags of cotton candy. 

For the adult tables I ordered balloons in red/yellow/blue/orange/green colors and put them in bunches as centerpieces on each table.  As each child arrived we gave them a plastic polka dotted derby hat in clown colors, a colored lei and a clown nose (I found the hats and noses at momentousoccasion.com).  The kids loved them!  We had pizza, mostacolli and salad buffet style for everyone to eat (served on paper plates and napkins in red/yellow/blue).  

We also had a clown come for about 45 minutes.  As everyone was eating she walked around making animal balloons.  She also did a 20 minute puppet show for the kids then walked out with the birthday cake and gathered everyone to sing Happy Birthday. 

For the cake, we ordered it from a local bakery.  It was round shaped and had a red/white circus big top tent standing on the top of it.  Under the big top there were circus animals and clowns all in primary colors. 

For party favors I filled 8 inch red/white and yellow popcorn boxes with red/yellow tissue paper.  Inside the box there was "circus" candy - marshmallow circus peanuts (individually wrapped), gummi candy that looked like hot dogs and hamburgers, cotton candy flavored candy, colorful candy sticks, bubbles, bouncing balls and the clown stickers.  The room also had speakers so we were able to play music.  I found a circus themed CD that played as our guests rode the carousel. 

Everyone really enjoyed themselves and it was really not a lot of work because most of it was ordered on the internet plus the food and cake were delivered to us.  I didn't have games because the kids had enough to do to keep them busy.  Inside the thank you cards, we included a picture of the child in their hat and clown nose.