Freak: It's all in the family... Circus Party!

I have two kids with fall birthdays. Instead of having two friend parties and two family parties, I've decided to have just one of each. That way, my girls each (kind of) get a party, but I'm not inviting everyone twice two months in a row. I'm totally fine with having tons of cake, but four parties in two months would just be ridiculous. (Hubs has a bday in November, so I guess technically we'll be having three parties.)

This year's theme is A Day at the Circus! I'm excited because the decor from this can be converted to Halloween decor. The colors are maroon/burgundy and black, with bursts of golden yellow mixed in. I have found so many fantastic ideas and I'm really excited to get started.

Invitations will look something like this:

I searched all over the internet for free circus fonts, but I was a little worried about downloading anything because all of the sites I found looked a little shady. Then I looked in Microsoft Works Word Processor, which was already on my laptop, and found the fonts you see above. The maroon writing is in Rosewood Std Regular and the black is called Playbill.

For the door, I thought I'd make a sign like this:

Once the kids come in through the doorway, I'll have maroon streamers hanging down. When they enter, I'll have more streamers hanging from the light fixtures to where the wall and ceiling meet. I'm hoping my tiny apartment will look more like the inside of a big top tent.

On the food/dessert table I'll have a maroon tablecloth. I'm going to make a cut in the front, and then use black ribbon to pull it to the sides so it looks like a miniature tent. The menu will consist of hot dogs, buns and condiments, popcorn and cotton candy, colorful swirled suckers, animal crackers, and strawberry lemonade.

(Photo above from a party featured on Kara's Party Ideas)

I found this gorgeous material at a thrift store the other day. I'm debating whether to use it as the backdrop for the photo booth or the food table.

As you may have read on the invitation, the kids have been encouraged to dress up. I'm a little more than excited for our costumes, which will be used for Halloween as well.

My husband will be a lion tamer. He'll carry a whip and have scratches and scars on his arms and maybe even his face. I was giving him options and he chose this. Why he didn't want to be a dancing bear, I'll never know...

My oldest daughter will be a tightrope walker. She'll be wearing a little black dress I found at the DI, creme tights, black shoes, her hair up, and she'll carry a parasol. She wants to be a "switch" a.k.a. a witch for Halloween, so this will be the easiest to convert. Trade the parasol for a broom, add a pointed hat hair clip and we'll be good to go.

My second-oldest will be the ringmaster. I found a little maroon swimsuit that will be perfect! I'm going to make her a little black jacket to go over it, complete with a tulle bustle. Add some creme tights underneath, black shoes, a felt black top hat hair clip and she's all set.

My little boy will be the strongest man, complete with fake brown mustache and little barbell. Easy AND cute. Did I mention easy?

I think I will be some sort of doll that's come to life. I'm not positive yet. I have a black tutu/skirt I wore to Witches Night Out last year and I found a tutorial for a great corset-looking shirt (without the squeeze) here. Add a few embellishments and it would look kind of cool for really cheap. I really like the eye and lip makeup shown below. (But no chola brows for this chica.) I don't think I'll do the stitches though because this is a kid's party. There is a great doll makeup tutorial here by Michelle Phan. The eyes look a little different, but not much.

For the kid party, I was thinking they could watch Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey! whilst eating hot dogs, popcorn, and cotton candy. I know that movie is not really circus-themed, but there's a monkey, a wizard, and an elephant in it. That's close enough, right?

Later we play games and the girls can open presents. After we sing and eat cake I'll send the kiddos home with sugar-highs. Birthday parties are great, aren't they?

If you have any ideas, send them my way! I still need ideas for games in a small living room (besides pin the something on the something) and party favors.

I'll keep posting to show my progress along with regular programming.

Wish me luck!

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P.S. The winner of the Lovable Labels giveaway was Sally!

~SALLY~ said...
I follow you both on Twitter @coupons4moms

Congrats!