The making of Liam's Carnival

Liam's first birthday has come and gone so quickly that I barely had time to realize it was ever here at all.  We had a wonderful party the Saturday before his Monday birthday filled with family, friends, games, and cake.  Because so much happened and there were many small details involved in "Liam's Carnival" I am going to review the day in two separate posts.  This one, that will focus on the preparation and details of the party and a second one that will focus on the actual party itself.  

As I talked about before, I had a difficult time coming up with a theme for Liam's 1st birthday party.  I stressed and stressed about it until it finally hit me- Carnival party.  Who doesn't love a good carnival?  The games, the food, it's the perfect theme for a spring, summer, or fall birthday.  There are so many creative things you can do!

Planning the party took me about two months.  I started putting together some of my ideas around the time that Liam turned ten months old.  Pinterest helped me a bunch with ideas on games, decorations, and food.  I turned to Etsy for the invitations and found one I loved by DazzleExpressions.  This is only half of the invitation since the other half included our personal information...  

We originally invited about 75 people and ended up having around 45-50 guests.  The ages of our guests ranged from about 10 months old and up.  This included four babies and 12 children up to age ten.  A great crowd!      

                                                 

Decor

For the decorations I knew I wanted to incorporate lots of color and plenty of balloons.  I used typical party decor such as streamers, paper lanterns, and plastic table cloths.  The focus of color was red, with blue, yellow, and orange as the main complimentary colors. 

I got on a kick with chalkboard signs, so I went with it.  We have a chalkboard wall hanging in our kitchen that I wrote Liam's birth date and time on, since everyone would see it as they came in to fill their plates with food.  

One of my favorite accents to the whole party though was a chalkboard sign my husband and I made.  I found a square piece of wood at Michaels that was the perfect size for a sign.  I picked up a longer, thinner piece that would serve as the stake.  My husband nailed the two pieces together to form a sign that would stand up when stuck into the ground.  I found chalkboard paint (also at Michaels) and painted the entire sign with it.  I decorated it with chalk right off of our porch where everyone would see as they walked up to the door.                                 

                                         

                                           

The great thing about this sign is that Liam can use it in the future for whatever he wants or we can use again as well.  I love it!

I had really been pondering ideas for a "guestbook" type thing for people to sign with their birthday wishes for Liam.  As I was browsing Michaels for party supplies one day I came across card stock in a triangular shape, perfect for a banner or flag.  I decided to punch holes in each one, string them together with ribbon, and hang them on the stair banister.  People would see it right as they walked in the door- PERFECT.  I attached a sign asking people to sign a piece of the banner with their birthday wishes for Liam.  This stayed right with the carnival theme and was a fun way to leave wishes for the birthday boy!

We also hung multicolored banners throughout the house and from the front and back porches.  Balloons were tied to the fence posts to add some more color outside as well.  

I added a table in one room that served as the prize and tattoo table.  It had a large framed picture of Liam from the hospital right in the middle.  Random photos of Liam from the past year were placed in inexpensive frames (from the Christmas Tree Shops) and set on the wide windowsills that we have in our kitchen (you can see this in pictures of the food later in this post).  I also brought out our shutterfly albums of Liam and set them on the big ottoman in the living room so our guests could see how much he has grown in the past year.

Cake

My mom, who also made our wedding cake almost three years ago agreed to make Liam's first birthday cake as well.  It was two separate cakes, one on top of the other.  The small one on top for Liam to smash and the large one on bottom for everyone else to enjoy.  The flavor of Liam's cake was white with vanilla icing and the big cake was chocolate with white icing.  My mom covered the cake in fondant so that it was easier to manipulate and decorate.  She used strips of fondant to make the bottom cake look like a carnival tent.  We both cut pieces of different colored fondant in circles and "glued" them together with icing to make layered circles as decorations.  We added lollipops, lemon drops, and a pinwheel to really enhance the carnival theme.  

The cake was delicious and was served with ice cream.  It acted as the centerpiece on our dining room table, surrounded by small boxes of kettle corn (the best kettle corn I ever tasted, Sam's Club).  

Food

Since I mentioned cake and popcorn, we shall move on to the food.  For each food item, along with the games, etc. I had typed up little signs explaining what each item was.  The words were printed on regular printer paper, cut, and pasted onto cardstock.  We served all of the food inside.   

Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of all the food, since I took many of these photos before the party started so here is the menu in full:

Corn dogs 

Steamers

Nachos- make your own in individual nacho trays!

Assorted veggies and dip

Cantaloupe balls

Watermelon

Pop corn

Cotton candy

Birthday cake

Neapolitan ice cream

Lemonade 

Soda

Adult drinks!

For the pop corn I ordered little boxes from oriental trading and bought the kettle corn pre-popped so  I wouldn't have to worry about doing any additional work that day.

I surprisingly found cotton candy at Sam's Club in individual containers.  I decided to make cones out of card stock to serve the cotton candy in, but unfortunately it dried out very quickly.  I do not think that it was edible after the first half hour of the party.  Lesson learned.  It still looked pretty though!

Cotton candy, photos of Liam, and pictures of Liam in the window sill.

I was thrilled with our choices in food and it seems everyone else was as well since we did not have many left overs.  

For serving plates, bowls, etc I used many of my own nice glass pieces which brought some flare to the food.
  

For the party, we wanted to appeal to all ages so I tried to cater to everyone in each aspect.  We did serve alcoholic beverages for the adults so that they were able to have a drink if they wanted to.  This was done responsibly.  Plus, you can't have a party without wine, right? ;)

Games and Fun

Right away I have to give many thanks to the wonderful Sabrina from RhodeyGirlTests (if you don't read her blog already, you must!) for helping me out on this one as she helped me obtain this awesome tent from IKEA.  Such a great addition to the party and will continue to be one of Liam's favorite house toys!  We had the tent outside for the party, which you can see in some of the outdoor photos, but I wanted everyone to get a nice look at it!  

Pretty freaking cool, huh?!

I also bought a see-through, but colorful plastic tunnel for kids to crawl through.  I purchased it from Walmart online and was very pleased with the product.  It appealed to all the ages of the children from babies to almost teens.  I do have to say myself that I've crawled through that thing and sat in the tent plenty of times and I even love them! 

Right when I began planning Liam's party I knew I wanted to do a photo booth.  Though our tripod and camera weren't functioning the way I'd planned, I still went through with it.  I covered a shade/room divider with plastic table cloth and provided various props to use such as: clown wig, clown noses, a goofy clown hat, and mustache, lips, and glasses on a stick.  Though not many children took advantage of the booth, I think the adults thoroughly enjoyed it!

The prize table consisted of lollipops, water guns, bubbles, and sun glasses.  I also asked everyone to take a pinwheel with them as they left too.  As a table decoration I placed pinwheels in a gorgeous glass pitcher outside on a table.  I ordered these from Oriental Trading and LOVED them!  I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of them, but they were one of my favorite things from the whole party.

                                                  

I'd have to say one of the biggest hits that day was the Tattoo station.  I am so glad we did this!   It was a last minute thing, but totally worth it.  Almost all of our guests were tattooed and kept coming back for more.  Success!

                                                   

Here are some of the other activities that took place at Liam's Carnival...

Pick a duck to take home

Ball pit

Wagon rides

We also had a fishbowl toss with prizes stuck inside the bowls.  Liam's godparents brought a bean bag toss game and ladder ball game which appealed to all ages of guests.  I also placed Liam's play pen outside with a blanket underneath and toys so that if any parents of babies wanted to let their little one crawl around without worrying that they would go somewhere, they could do so.  We had our Gazebo tents up and chairs outside so that people could relax in the shade since we don't have many trees in our yard.

This was the first party we held at our new house and I was definitely stressing over how it would turn out.  We probably spent a little more money than we should have, but we did end up saving many of the decorations for future parties.  Plus, Liam got some fun new gifts to play with out this whole thing: a tent, a tunnel, a ball pit, etc!  It took time to throw the whole shindig together so I'm very thankful that I had the week off of work prior.  I'm also extremely thankful for all the help from my husband, mom, father, and father in law.  

Although I'm sure that Liam will not remember the day, I feel like it was well worth it.  He did seem to enjoy it and as I mentioned before, will continue to enjoy the lovely "props".   I loved celebrating with our family and friends, who we don't see as often as I'd like.  

Our guests seemed to have a good time, especially the kids.  I heard many words of praise about the things we did, which made me very happy.  I am so thankful that everything went well and I can't believe its over already!  

Soon enough I will post on the actual party- the cake smashing, the gifts, and the fun pictures!