Every year Me and My Insanity throws a big linky party for parties to celebrate her blogiversary. I participated last year and it is really a lot of fun. This year I am entering my Carnival Birthday party that I threw back in January of 2011. I decided to put this in the budget party category, since I worked hard to stay frugal and make every dollar count! Here’s my entry to the:

 

 

The first thing guests saw when they drove up to the party was this carnival sign. I made it by freezer paper stenciling onto a clearance furniture cover I cut up from Ikea. The whole sign cost about $1 to make, as I had the paint and ribbon on hand!

The Dessert Table:

I have never done a display table like this before and I was happy with my first try. I had to convince the husband that I couldn’t just set everything on the counter, I needed a whole table! I stayed up until 3am assembling things and trying to get everything just right.

Here’s a run down of everything on the table:

• 1 Large popcorn “bowl” $1 from Dollar Tree (I used two other popcorn bowl for popcorn on tables)
• Iridescent shred from Dollar Tree
• 3 large lollipops from Walmart Christmas Clearance. The two smaller ones were $1 each(50% off) and the bigger one was $.75(75% off)
• I made some salt water taffy skewers.
• The bowl is weighted down with some pinto beans and I stuck the lollipops and skewers into styrofoam from Dollar Tree.

• Here is a post about theBig Top Cupcake and Cookie, as well as the cupcake stand, HERE

We also had some fun snacks to munch on

• I got the popcorn containers from Dollar Tree for 2/$1
• They were filled with licorice, red/white striped candy sticks, pixie sticks, Circus Animal crackers, some marshmallow poles(10/$1 at Dollar Tree), and some heart marshmallow skewers.
• I found different flavors of yogurt dipped pretzels in the bulk section of the local farmers market type grocery story(Sunflower market) I liked that they were yogurt tipped instead of candy and they had some great flavors.

The cotton candy board was a foam board from the dollar store that I wrapped in Christmas wrap. I packaged the cotton candy myself from big containers of cotton candy I found in the Walmart Christmas clearance.

Here is a close up of the skewers.

I found some cute heart shaped marshmallows at Dollar Tree and so I skewered them with white and pink taffy. Some were just marshmallows and some were a mix.

If you want more information on the cotton candy board, you can find that post HERE.
The Ferris Wheel filled with Taffy, I talked about HERE

The whole thing one more time:

I am really happy that I was able to do a dessert table on a budget. Everything I bought was on clearance, on sale, or from Dollar Tree. That makes me happy!

Party Activities:

 

I asked my sister in law to do some Face painting with dollar store brushes and some Hobby Lobby face paint(40% off of course!) 😉 .

We had a fun photobooth set-up for everyone to monkey around in. It came from Hobby Lobby for about $7 after coupon.

Photo props, came from the Dollar store too.

Sticking with the carnival theme,  I scoured Dollar Stores and Christmas clearance to come up with a good assortment of prizes for a prize booth. The most expensive item on the table cost only $1.

After a great party, you can’t forgot to thank your guests. I took pictures of the guests in the photobooth and sent everyone a personalized photo thank you card. The photo cards were clearance in the Target Dollar spot.

This post was a compilation of about 5 different party posts I did back at the beginning of 2011. If you want more information, you can find all of the original posts here: http://www.cuteasafox.com/2011/01/carnival-party-table-of-contents.html

Recommended Reading:

Carnival Party: Dessert Table Carnival Party Sneak Peek: Cotton Candy Carnival Party: Cupcake Stand