Real Parties:-Vintage Circus Birthday Party
March 5, 2010 by Jen
Filed under Birthday Parties, Featured, Real Birthday Parties
My inbox is full of parties that I NEED to feature, but I’ve been so incredibly busy over the past few days, that I’ve hardly had time to write up new features. Today, I’m trying to squeeze in a few moments to share the awesome vintage circus party that Sandy from The Winding Road sent me. I absolutely love the children’s outfits, and all the great vintage style and details that Sandy incorporated. Here are the details as told by Sandy:
“As our family lives around the country, it’s hard to get everyone in the same place at the same time. Our parents and siblings were flying in for my son’s baptism and so I decided to try and fit as many significant events into one weekend as possible. Since my daughter Lauren’s birthday is in January and my son Jacob’s was in late December, it seemed like a good idea to combine the two. I wanted a theme that would be appropriate for both and fell in love with the idea of a circus party. I knew I wanted something that had more of a vintage feel. I was inspired by a “Greatest Show on Earth” shoot I saw in an Italian Vogue and tried to find outfits for the kids that reminded me of the clothing in the magazine. The outfits set the tone for the rest of the party. I found both girls’ jackets and my son’s tuxedo on e-bay for $9.99 each! I added the embellishments and then made the girls’ skirts myself. Lauren’s top hat was actually a doll’s hat from Michael’s.
For food: We served typical circus fare; hot dogs, chips, and popcorn. Both Lauren and Jacob had their own cakes. Lauren’s “popcorn” cake was used for the guests while Jacob’s “elephant” cake was more of a smash cake. As he didn’t really “get into” the whole smashing idea, we served his cake as well.
For the decorations: I fell in love with the idea of the “Chasing Fireflies” light up carousel lights but they wanted $178 per letter! So, instead I purchased paper-mache letters from Joann’s Crafts for around $3 each. We painted them and adhered them to a sign we had cut and then added Christmas lights to finish it off. My husband put together the big top for me using a hula hoop and rolls of plastic tablecloth purchased from the party store. I added the homemade fabric banner. I also used larger strips of the same fabric as backdrops for the games we played: clothespin drop, “knock over the can”, and our tattoo station. Everyone had their choice of homemade mustaches-on-a-stick or clown noses ordered from Oriental Trading. We had a photo area set up in one of the rooms to capture shots of all of our guests. I purchased circus posters very inexpensively from a site on the internet and we framed those and placed them throughout the house along with the circus pictures I had taken of our children.
As a take home gift each child filled a popcorn bag with their choice of treats. We had clown rubber duckies, bouncy balls, animal crackers, mini-gumball machines, lollipops, candy necklaces, gum, spinning tops, kazoos, noise-makers, and clown noses.”
Thank you Sandy for sharing this adorable party, and for the awesome inspiration!
OMG, this is amazing and adorable! Very creative!
I love this party theme. With boy/girl twins I am always looking out for adorable and gender neutral parties. Thanks for sharing!