DIY, Lifestyle, Parties, Uncategorized

How to Throw a Pastel Carnival Birthday Party

July 7, 2023

Planning parties is by far my most favorite thing to do. I don’t know why, but I love it. Planning my kid’s birthdays is on a whole other level of excitement though. I think I started planning B’s 4th birthday 3 months in advanced. The theme changed 4 times, and I finally settled on pastel circus/ pastel carnival. I love the color theme, the options for activities, and how easy it was to find stuff for it. Here is how to throw a pastel carnival birthday party.

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Tips for your own Pastel Carnival/ Circus

My biggest tips for throwing parties, is use/ utilize what you have. You do not need to rent a huge space and can create a beautiful party in your home no matter the size. I love creating a main focal point for parties. This can be a backdrop like pictured above, or a food table, or the table the kids will eat at, but I love having something that is big and fun and really sets the theme and tone of our paste circus/ carnival party. For this party I utilized a few spaces in my home. In the kitchen area, I set up my food and main backdrop. Outside in my backyard, we had a bounce house and other activities. I loved this set up and it helped keep me more organized. Here are a few more tips I abide by when throwing a party.

Another huge tip is to make sure you have adults to help out for different activities, or know how you are going to do everything and when. If you are flying solo, set up small stations and have the kids rotate together so it is easier on you.

Easy Tips and Tricks

Go all out. You do not have to spend a ton of money, but amazon has some great sets you can buy, or you can mix and match like I did to create a more custom look. I made a ton of stuff for this party with things I already had on had.
Balloons, balloons, balloons. I love the huge punch that balloons pack. I think they are so fun and are a great space filler
Make a giant marquee number for your little one. It is super easy and I love how cute it makes a space (tutorial here)
Create Activities that match the theme.
Create custom water bottle labels (I promise it is super easy- here is a tutorial)
Make a cake topper if you are serving cake, or mini toppers for cupcakes
Layers, layers, layers. When you are setting up your food table, make sure to later things at different heights. This takes an ordinary party to high end and is more pleasing to look at.
Check Etsy for cute custom prints and party sets. For this party, I used this shop. She had everything I needed and I loved my invite.

Decor/ Supplies: How to Throw a Pastel Carnival Birthday Party

The decor for your party can be as simple or extravagant as you want. There are a ton of links below to help you plan your very own pastel circus party.

Activities

I chose to only do a few activities because my sister brought her mini farm animal business and we had a petting zoo. For the activities, I wanted the kids to be able to participate without a ton of confusion or direction. A lot of these activities could be adapted for older kids as well

Tattoo Station- I had different packs of age appropriate tattoos for the kids. They could choose however many they wanted and it was super fun. I bought this pack and this pack. This was a huge hit and kids kept coming back for more and more.
a piñata- fill it with small toys instead of candy if you don’t want to more sweets (I used this pack from Amazon)
a bounce house ( I just made sure they knew to take off their shoes to jump). Mine is from Cute Bounce House Utah. This was the highlight of the party and provided so much entertainment for the kids. I loved having it, plus it was super cute.
Sensory bins- I created a Pastel Circus Themed Sensory Bin for the party and it was a huge hit
Balloon Animals- grab this set of balloons and watch some YouTube to learn how to make a few simple things, or hire someone. You could also make them ahead of time and just hand them out at the party.

Other Activities

Bean Bag Toss- I made a toss game out of an old piece of wood, but you could use a larger cardboard box, or a foam core board. I painted it to match my colors, and then cut out flowers on my Cricut. I made the bean bags as well with leftover fabric, but you could buy them on amazon.
Water Table (hack it to have the water flowing constantly, tutorial here)
Ring Toss
This set of games is fun
This set also has a lot of options

Pastel Carnival Party: Food

This theme was by far the easiest to come up with food. I just thought of all the carnival/ circus food and went with it. For our main food, we served pizza and uncrustable sandwiches, but hot dogs also would have been perfect. We also served, cookies, cotton candy, popcorn, and cupcakes (the parents will thank you later).
Snow Cone Machine
Hot Dog and Popcorn Bag Set
Animal Crackers
Frosted Animal Crackers

Pastel Carnival Party: Goody Bag

I love putting together the goody bag. I know it can add up and most of it is junk that will get thrown away, but I always loved getting one at birthday parties as a kid. Here are a few easy things to add to any goody bag. I grabbed most the stuff off of Amazon, but also found stuff at target and the dollar store.

–Favor Boxes
–Tattoos
–Stickers
-Fidget Toy- mini pop it, stretchy toy, twisty toy
-Stickers- I love finding themed stickers from the party. I couldn’t find a lot of pastel versions, but these ones worked well
–Frosted Circus Animal Crackers
-DIY Sunglasses (tutorial here)
–Fun Straws
-Bubbles- this set comes with a bunch but this is the set I used
–Noise Maker I like this set too

Easy DIYS at a Pastel Circus Birthday Party

Make your own matching party confetti. I did this using a Cricut and colored paper that matched my theme. I used this on the tables, in the favor bags, and everywhere else I felt like for a custom look.
DIY a Piñata! I could have bought a piñata, but I made one that I knew would match my colors and theme exactly and it cost about $5 for Tissue paper. I filled it with this set from Amazon. Tutorial here
Make party hats- you could have this as an activity for the kids, or you could create them yourself
Cake Topper- I love customizing a cake topper. I just used paper and felt and ribbon
Cotton Candy Cups- I made my own stickers and used these cups to fill with cotton candy