Carnival Party

I was lucky to have some of the moms help me out with the games.

Here is the squirt a ball. Behind that in the big trash bags are the balloons for the pop a balloon. (The blue thing on the side is the tarp we ended up taking down since it kept blowing down)

Goldfish toss and Penny Toss the wood thing in the center of the photo is the bean bag toss (I didn't get a photo of that...I will have to get one)

In this photo you can see the bags the kids made when they first arrived Below in the front sittig on the ground). They were each given a white bag, markers and stickers to decorate it. They each got 25 tickets to play games with, and when they won tickets, they could put them into their bags. I guess I made the goldfish toss a little too easy, (or maybe they should have stood back further) I think every kid won at least one fish. The mom that was running it ended up putting a 3 fish limit on the kids. We had goldfish crackers as a consolation prize)

Still more photos to follow.....

Carnival Party - the games

I forgot to get photos of the games before the party, so I shot a few afterwards. One of my cups came loose from the Goldfish toss: We added circles behind the balloons for the dart board. When they popped a balloon they got however many tickets were on the circle:

The penny toss. We used clear plastic plates that we got at the dollar store and used acrylic paints to paint them different colors. We used the buckets underneath to make it more "kid sized"

Here they had to use a sling shot to shoot a sponge ball through the hoops. 1 ticket for the green hoops, 2 tickets for the purple hoops and 3 for the smallest hoop. We got the hoops at the $ store, and wrapped them with crepe paper (that we have had forever)

Here we used empty salt containers which we wrapped in scrapbook paper!

I must say that the day was HOT. We put up some canopies, but the one kept trying to blow down, so we ended up taking it down altogether.

We also had a bean bag toss, pop a balloon (there were pieces of paper with the name of the prize written on it inside a balloon) they had to pop the balloon to win the prize! A lollipop tree, bank a ball, squirt a ball, ring toss, and a sponge toss!

More photos to follow!

Carnival Party Preparations-yard clean up

LOL I had to add this picture! It took us a while to get the back yard cleaned up for the party. I had been clearing the wood pile of rotten wood for 3 hours this day by myself. (They had been in the pool) Finally they got out to help me a bit. I don't know why he chose to wear his rain boots while he was dripping wet but...he did. Later when he walked by I heard a sloshing sound. He sat down and poured the water out of his boots that had dripped off of his suit. LOL Here they were helping to collect up the pieces of smaller wood.

Carnival Party Preparations-the cupcakes

Okay so here's my disclaimer.....I NEVER claimed to be a cake decorator!!! This is why I usually leave the cakes to the professionals! So no laughing at the baked goods please!
So anyway.... here are some of the ice cream cone cupcakes. More Ice cream cone cupcakes. Some she added some of her colored sugars to:

And here we made regular cupcakes to look like snow cones!

We made these the morning of the party because I was afraid the icing was going to melt off (don't you hate that icing does that???) She made three different types of cupcakes, Funfetti, chocolate and strawberry. She wanted to be sure that there was something for everyone!!!

Carnival Party Preparations

We usually buy cakes for parties. But this year being as though it was a special party, she wanted to make special cupcakes. Here she is making her own colored sugars. I had found a tutorial on Pinterest on how to do this. We used granulated sugar, and food coloring.Some of the colors we made.The dark green we used raw sugar, which is why it looks different.

More colors:

We didn't end up using most of these colors for her cupcakes, but it sure is nice to know we can make our own! I used to buy them from Shady Maple. The container the pink one is in (which is a store bought one) cost $1.75!!! we got a whole bag of sugar for $2.25 or something like that. I will sy we did make one batch...we started out too dark, and had trouble fixing it. It came out a very ugly green. We threw it out....it was just....a very gross color. LOL

Carnival Preparations continued

Here I am using my glue gun to glue cups to the goldfish toss. It occured to me about 1/2 way through that I should be using my regular glue gun, and I wouldn't be struggling so much!

Here David drilled holes into a board from the pallets so I could spray paint (which was left over from another project-Cameron's halloween costume-the robot-from 2 years ago) the wooden golf tees for a different game.

Carnival Party preparations

I wanted to add some photos of the Carnival Party preparations. We used a lot of "found" and recycled items for the games. We had a few pallets: Two sheets of...Plywood(???) which both had 2x4's screwed into the backs:

We picked up some spray paint from Walmart, and took turns spraying the wood. We covered her face so she wouldnt breathe as many fumes.

Daddy stepped in to finish:

Drilling holes for another game:

As you can see by his fingers, we also spray painted a wooden box we had gotten from a local store. They were just going to throw it out. It was a really nice rectangular box. I forgot to get pictures of the before. The box was painted blue, and another of the wood sheets was painted green.

More photos to follow...

Special Order planners 1 of 2

I am working on a special for someone. She wants 10 of my planners from Manila Folders. I am making a few different ones and posting them here so she can chose the ones she likes best. The first picture is the front and the second is the insides. I still need to add the papers inside of each of them. Each folder also has a coordinating envelope inside. The little number stickers are so she can order by number :)

More to follow!!!!!

Special Order Planners-2 of 2

Here are more of the planners I am making

(the bottom one in this picture is #10...my fan was blowing the sign)

I will be making more of these for upcoming sales! I now have one booked for the end of September in addition to the three in November! I have to keep busy!!!

How time flies

Above 3 years and one month old. With her favorite cousin, who by the way is now 16! She loves this girl, and misses her terribly. She moved to Ohio in 2006 (this is taken at her house)

Above officially 3years old! Hugging a bear from "Mammy". Taken at the pool we belonged to (which is now closed)

And last, above, today, officially 9 years old. With her birthday breakfast of Chocolate Chip pancakes. (And I love that she isn't "too big" to wear, or eat off of, Princesses!)

Sigh....time flies just too quickly. :( Today we celebrated my daughter's 9th birthday. We didn't do anything exciting today (special breakfast, special lunch, some birthday balloons and cards), she has a big party planned on Sunday if it doesn't rain. A Carnival party we have been talking about since last year! We have carnival games planned, and prizes planned, and games built, and decorations are in the works. I am sure people think I am nuts...and maybe I am, but they are only little once. And I have to tell you this kid is amazing. I brought up a few suggestions for things for her party (making key chains for her party guests, and a Photo booth complete with props) and she was very excited at first, but then said "Mom I don't want you to waste the money, we don't have to do that for my party." She is such a sweetheart. And I love her to pieces (even on her bad days). But I just can't believe that little bundle I brought home from the hospital, the one that NEVER wanted to sleep at night time, who rarely cried, and melted my heart the first time our eyes met....she's 9 now. And I love her more then she will ever know. <3 <3 <3