Better late than never! It's been 2 years since Braden's 1st birthday and now that he's turning 3 I couldn't help but look back at his carnival party and share it.
My husband and I knew we didn't want something typical or generic like an ABC theme for our first born's first birthday. We wanted to go all out! After booking a park hall in Placentia, which had both an indoor and outdoor space, we instantly knew a CARNIVAL theme would be it!
What's a CARNIVAL without tickets? Each birthday invitation had a custom ticket I designed along with a welcoming picture of the RINGMASTER himself!
This custom banner greeted the guests as they came in. I designed it on photoshop with the same picture I used for his invitations.
One of the projects I took on was the cake. I knew I wanted cupcakes which were easy to decorate with stars and circle cut outs from fondant and I added custom cupcake toppers I designed to match the theme. For the top I wanted a circus tent design, which was harder than I thought, especially since it was my first time working with fondant. Oh well, close enough! For the balloon arch, I just rented a helium tank from my local party rental supplier and put my brother (who was in ASB in high school) to work!
For favors I found these awesome mini gumball machines at Big Lots for about $1 and just added favor tags. So cute and perfect match for a CARNIVAL theme and everyone loved them!
The centerpieces were popcorn containers topped with lollipops, carnival themed ducks and a windmill.
The centerpieces were popcorn containers topped with lollipops, carnival themed ducks and a windmill.
Remember how I mentioned the hall had an outdoor space? I bought different color fabric and hung them up against the fence and had CARNIVAL game stations! We had the duck in the pond game, tic-tac-toe, go fish, ball toss and more. With each game guests/players were given tickets for winning the game, yellow, green and red. Each color ticket could be exchanged for a small, medium, or large prize. You can also upgrade to medium prize with 5 small tickets and so forth. 
My husband actually made this himself using PVC pipes and encased in plywood frame. Then he used spray paint and painted some red and blue. Blue ones were big prizes and red for medium.
The prizes table! Thanks to Dollar Tree I was able to give our guests more than enough choices of CARNIVAL prizes from small to large!
A 1st Birthday CARNIVAL can't be complete without face painting, cotton candy, and balloon artists!
And don't forget the Photobooth!
I bought some silly props for guest to use to take pictures with, even Grandma had fun with it!
We hung up a red fabric with polka dots as the backdrop and printed pictures instantly on my mini HP Photosmart printer where you can plug in your camera or insert memory cards. I had pre-printed on these cute bracket frame 3M sticker labels and stuck them on the picture and mounted them on cardstock with corner stickers for guest to take home as souvenirs.
Happy 1st Birthday Braden!
I know my son will never remember this day, but he'll always have these pictures to enjoy!
