More Carnival Details

Ashley Kate is still asleep so I've been working on some more pictures and details. I came up with an easier way to share the photos. Hopefully these groups of photos will better help explain how we set things up. If not let me know and I'll try and be more specific if you need more help.



The Cake. My sister is a VERY talented cake designer and baker. She has made all of Ashley Kate's birthday cakes and they are amazing! Give her a theme and allow her imagination to run with it. I loved that she Incorporated pennants into the design since I had spent so much time sewing some to hang from our trees. The cake was three layers. Three flavors. Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla. So delicious! So cute! I loved it.

She also baked all of our cupcakes for the cake walk and all of our sugar cookies in the shape of lollipops and ice cream cones. I used the cookies in the center pieces on the tables and also offered them at the concessions. So yummy!

Entertainment. We had a balloon artist, clown, face painter and magician to entertain our guests. The balloon artist was the absolute BEST I have ever seen. His talents were amazing! I would highly recommend hiring him if you are ever needing one.

All of the face painters in the area were booked on our date and so "Tract" our balloon artist had his wife come with him and do the face painting for us. I had intended on hiring an artist who could paint full face masks for the kids, but since that didn't work out this did. She was actually pretty good at what she did. No one seemed to notice that my original plan didn't work out. I don't think we missed out on anything.

The magician worked along side "Tract" as well. He did a good job at including the kids in the crowd in his act. There was nothing super amazing about the show, but I believe it did add a little something to Ash's party. In all the pictures of the crowd you see people smiling and enjoying themselves. That is exactly what we had hoped to happen.




Clowns. It really wasn't in my budget to hire more clowns so I did the next best thing. I used teenagers! We ordered a couple of costumes for them and they did amazing! I really wanted to have clowns roaming around the grounds with big bundles of balloons and posing for photo ops with the kids. Blake and John did such a good job for us.

Concessions. One of the biggest elements of the entire party. Food! Lots of detail and planning went into this part. We housed most things underneath a 10x20 tent. On the front of the tent we hung fabric pennant banners and a large refreshments banner. The drinks were kept cold in large tubs of ice right in front. Everyone was welcome to come and go as they wished and have as many items as they wished.

We offered the traditional carnival type fare. Cotton Candy, Popcorn, Snow Cones, Hot dogs, Corn Dogs, and Funnel Cakes. We also threw in some hot and fresh French Fries, along with giant Pickles, fresh Lemonade, ice cold Soda Pops(complete with carnival labels) and Waters.


We had vendors who walked around the carnival offering bags of fresh peanuts and boxes of animal crackers. I used some old Coke a Cola crates and some striped ribbon to make the vendor boxes. One of my absolute favorite details! We also used the old crates as props and decorations. They held the mason jars for lemonade as well as some empty soda pop bottles.

We did a lot of printing. We made our own labels in Carnival or Circus fonts for candy jars of Circus Peanuts, Salt Water Taffy, large suckers, and little gumball machines. We added labels to the front of the pickle jars as well. I loved all the details. My favorite parties are those that include lots of little details and personalizations.



Banners. We hand painted all of our banners. I saw this style of banner on google, but I needed them to say several different things than the four that was offered. I also wanted them to be much bigger so we just made our own. After tracing the first one off a power point we made a set of stencil letters in this style. I bought the craft paints from Walmart. Apple Barrel was the name of them. We again used the drapery fabric backing. After the paint dried we sewed hems around all four sides and took them to a sign shop where they allowed us to use their grommet tool. I think they charged us like .25 cents each.

All of the fronts of the midway were banners as well. I was very pleased with the look of them all.


Believe it or not there is more to come. I told you this would be SOOOO boring for those of you who are not looking for ideas for a carnival party. I think I can wrap it up in one more post. I promise I won't do anymore than that! Have a great day!