Party, party,party!!!

So I have two July babies and I always do a big party for both of them. We have had Disney, Cowboys, Adventure Around the World and this year we went all out with a Carnival Party.
I am a DIYer, so I start early. Although since this year I'm moving I had to cut some corners.
I started by ordering my invitations on Etsy, these were super cute and by far the best price I found, they were $28 for 15 printed and personalized invitations. Everyone else I checked were between $12 and $18 for just the digital file, so yeah no thanks. Brightside Prints won my pennies. Here they are.

Next I had to come up with my booths, I decided on 9 different ones, I did a Photo Booth, took apart an old picture I had and painted the frame and decorated it, put out props and other fun things, I hang it on one of the trees in my yard and I used fishing line so it was invisible. The kids loved it.
Then for the Snacks station I decided to do easy food since I was going to be busy outside with the rest of the stuff, so I did strawberry lemonade, corndogs, popcorn, nachos (chips and velveeta) and some potato salad and broccoli salad for the grownups. I also got individual baggies of chips.
I wanted to use tickets so instead of giving tickets at the entrance I made it Chuck e cheeses style, they played, earned tickets and then exchanged them for prizes, so for my prize station I gathered a bunch of glass jars and filled them with all kinds of stuff, suckers, little sticky hands, necklaces, rings for 1 or 2 tickets and then I had bigger items like jump ropes, squirt guns, glasses and other stuff for 4 or 5 tickets, I labeled the jars with the amount of tickets and decorated them with red bows. All stuff I got at the dollar store and some twirly popsicles I got a oriental trading. For the signs I downloaded a Circus font and printed my own.

Then I had a balloon twisting station which my oldest daughter took care of, if you are new to balloon twisting buy good quality ones like Qualatex at Amazon, the ones at Walmart are bad and they pop easily when you twist. They also have a nice pump.
I also had a Potato Sack Race station, I got the sacks at oriental trading for $8 ( pack of 6).
Then I also had a balloon dart station, I put numbers inside the balloons to determine the amount of tickets the kids won when they popped them. Do not hang the balloons until about an hour before, because they pop!!!! We had interesting weather and it got a bit windy and half of my balloons popped , not cool, so I inflated them and kept them in a plastic container until it was time, then my helper put them up as they went on.
I also had a Duck Pond ran by my 10 year old son, I put a number under the ducks and you picked one and got the amount of tickets written under the duck, this was mostly for the little kids. Helpful tip, BUY WEIGHED DUCKS!! I got the regular kind and they do not float upright so I had to glue pennies under them, I used E6000 glue for this, but it was an extra step I did not expect. The weighed ducks are $5.99 for a box of 12 at oriental trading, shoulda, coulda, woulda ...

Then I had a Ring Toss, I used some old Coca Cola bottles and painted them red, and had some pool rings that came in handy, I painted the box red and white and that was easy.
For the Bean Bag Toss I had a board already cut from an old game so I just decorated it red and white and got the bean bags at Oriental Trading for like $5.

I even had a Wii Carnival Games station for the little kids.

 

 

Kids had tons of fun at the Photo Booth and ate all the treats.

 

 

The games were a success and everyone participated.

 

 

Then it was cake time! I have learned my lesson that kids do not like fancy and expensive cakes, so I always get my cakes at Walmart, here at my local one they have an awesome cake girl and she does whatever you like if you take a pic or something, I took the invitation and she did it that way, it turned out cute!!! I always just get white cake and ice cream and that does it for the kids.

 

 

Then it was present time!!! The kids were loving it.

 

 

After the 3 hours of fun and eating, we sat down and enjoyed the cool evening.

And here I am with The Help!! I got striped fabric at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon and made some little aprons for the tickets, the bows I got at Zurchers ( party store) for $1.30 each. I asked my helpers to wear a white tshirt and voila we had The Help, I had to grab a couple helpers last minute who were out of uniform but oh well, it was fun!!
The weather was rainy and some of my pics are blown because the sun would poke out and I had to constantly meter my camera!!! But we had tons of fun!!!!
I hope you enjoyed the party with us!!!
Cheers!!!!