First Birthday Carnival

Jan 5

Jan 5 First Birthday Carnival

Hurry, Hurry, Step Right Up!

Back when my first (then only) baby was turning 1, we had a sweet carnival 1st birthday party with all of our family & friends. Your first baby only turns 1 once! It was really the first time—other than my wedding—that I had ever planned a party. I had very big ambitions. I did everything myself... the games, food, dessert, decorations, floral centerpieces, etc. I learned my lesson!

First up were the carnival themed invitations. I sent the invitations in fun popcorn bags to set the tone!

We held the party at our local firehouse. The decorations were simple. I ordered these 16Qt. Sky Blue Buckets from Red Hill General Store and filled them with 400 stems of white and some yellow carnations to look like popcorn. I made pinwheels with some brightly colored paper and stuck them in the floral arrangements for some added visual interest. There were these silly Balloon Face Stickers on the tables for the kids to make faces on the balloons that were tied all over the room.

We had lots of fun games for the kids to play; Bean Bag Throw, Ring Toss and Knockdown!

For the knockdown game, I covered old formula cans with wrapping papers and stickers with P's face on them. The kids used bean bags to knock the cans over.

I covered large homasote sound proofing boards with bright, fun fabrics and circus buntings to serve as the backdrop for our games. I purchased a lot of dollar store toys and pinned them up on the boards for prizes.

I covered a wooden corn hole game with a large blown up photo of P's face to serve as our bean bag throw game.

Cotton Candy Clowns sent over a great clown that did a magic show, painted the kid's faces, made balloon animals, dished out cotton candy and snow cones and then later he even dressed in an Elmo costume for an encore performance!

How cute are these big top cups??

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Popcorn and hot pretzels!

I made LOTS of fresh sandwiches... amazing, but a lot of work since I had to buy the bread the morning of the party (last thing you want to do when you are pulling together a million last minute party details) they needed to be assembled right before the party. And we had hot dogs for the kiddos, fruit salad, pasta and salad.

These popcorn cupcakes were a lot of fun to make. I used mini marshmallows, cut the tops of them in a cross and pinched the bottoms so they resembled popcorn, then sprayed them with some yellow food coloring.

I made a super simple smash cake for the birthday boy with some left over cupcake batter!

Then there were also some red velvet cupcakes topped with cream cream frosting and a gumball. We had this cute table top tent for our candy bar.

Lots of candy!! ...Cotton Candy, Pop Rocks, Gumballs, Cherry & Blueberry Rock Candy Sticks, Swirl Round Whirly Lollipops, Buttered Popcorn Jelly Beans, Very Berry Jelly Beans, Lemon Sour Candy Balls, Lemon Fruit Jell Slices, Red M&M’s, Strawberry Juicy Licorice Twists, Cherry Red and White Gummy Rings, Jumbo Cherry Beach Balls, Sour Blue Cola Bottles and Dubble Bubble Gum!!