Circus or Carnival

Age of Birthday Girl: 7 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Cake: This turned out great with just a little bit of extra effort.

1. The base is a simple round layer cake frosted in white.
2. A toilet paper or paper towel holder (depending on how high you want the roof) was covered with aluminum foil and placed in the center of the cake, pressing firmly so it stays upright.
3. Four lollipop sticks were placed around this center piece.
4. Computer printouts of carousel horses (double sided) were glued onto those sticks.
5. A roof was constructed out of card stock by cutting out a circle and then making a slit from the edge to the center.  Overlap the edges until you et the desired size/cone and then tape it together. Trim any pieces that are sticking out after the overlap step.

6. Four pieces of ribbon were attached to the center of the roof down to four more lollipop sticks evenly spaced near the edge of the cake

7. Candies were used to decorate the base - we used M&Ms and gummy lifesavers but you could use any favorite candy.

8. The candles were placed as close to the edge as possible just before lighting them to avoid setting the roof or ribbon on fire!

Activities: The guests were all greeted by dad, graciously wearing the clown wig and glasses (which the kids all wanted to try on of course). Once everyone arrived they were divided into groups to go through the circus activities.  

There was a face painting station where the kids could do their own painting on the faces or hands, or they could have a supervising adult do it, or another party guest. We used examples from the Klutz Face Painting book which had cards you could take out of the book with simple steps for a variety of creatures and designs.

Dad, the clown, showed the kids how to create simple balloon animals at another station.  Some of the kids really got into this one since most of them had never tried to make one on their own. There was a place to walk to tightrope (a wooden beam a few inches of the ground) and swing on a trapeze (our tree swing). And the kids got to shoot teddy bears through a "ring of fire" (a hula hoop with streamers) using a large elastic exercise band tied to a tree!

The finale was to gather everyone together and do a version of the clowns in the car.  First we piled everyone into our minivan.  Then we took video of them as they came out one by one.  The first video just had them all come out once, but then we tried it again with the back of the van open and out of the picture frame.  As kids came out they ran back around, put on a new hat or scarf to change their look, climbed into the back of the van, and came back through the door again - loads of fun!!

Unfortunately the videos are too large to include on the webpage but I think you get the idea!!

Horses!

Age of Birthday Girl: 9 years old
Age Range of Guests: 6-12 years old
Gender of Guests: mostly girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

When our daughter was nine she was in love with horses.  We managed to get her a few lessons but it is not easy around here and it gets expensive very quickly.  However, we indulged her interest by having a horse-themed party - no pony rides though!

Cake: We covered a 9x13 cake in green frosting for grass.  You could cover it with coconut flakes dyed green for more texture but we had two party guests with tree nut allergies so didn't go that route. The fence was found at a hobby store, but you could also just use popsicle/craft sticks.  Dirt inside the corral was made from chocolate cookie crumbs. The gate was part of a horse play set we already owned, as was the bale of hay & bucket.  The flowers are part of our Playmobil collection.  We found the horses and riders at a dollar store, all together as a set. We bought extras as party favors for the goodie bags.

Activities: Once again Dad put on a good show in working out party games.  The kids were asked to participate in a variety of activities related to caring for, or being a horse.  They pretended to be horses who were rolling around on the grass and competed to see who could roll down our front hill the fastest.  They scoured the yard to look for "hay" in the form of the longest blade of grass. They made sure there was enough water for all the horses in their care and had to count & cart water bottles from one area to the next.  The kids also completed an obstacle course jumping over objects to represent bales of hay, water hazards, fences, and other items in a horse jumping show.

(The water bottles were left over from a water shortage we had recently experienced when a major water main broke in our area - thousands were without clean water for drinking for a few days. All the large gallon jugs were sold out so we were left with individual water bottles instead.  They came in handy for the party which was, fortunately, after the water was working again).

Goodie Bags: Party guests received a cloth bag for their party favors.  Inside was a selection of candy, some plastic horses & riders from the play sets, a variety of horse stickers, a horse-themed self-inking stamp, and a plastic bracelet with a horse charm.

Music Party

Age of Birthday Girl: 6 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 2-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

This party was before everyone had an iPod (remember those days!) and so the focus was on making or creating music, not just listening to it.  The kids ranged in age from 4-9 years old, and included both boys and girls.

Invitations: Unfortunately we have lost our photos of the actual invitations.  However, they were something very similar to this.

We took black card stock and attached pieces of sheet music to it. Then we placed a black music note on a smaller piece of white card stock, placing that on top of the music. We then wrote "you are invited..." in silver ink on the music note.  The back of the card had the party information for guests.

Cake: Using two 9x13 cakes we placed one on top of the other (with frosting in between the layers). Then we carved the front part of the piano shape out of the top layer, being careful to save some of it in decent shape for the piano bench.  Both layers were carefully shaved and shaped around the other end to form the grand piano profile.

The whole thing was covered in frosting - we opted for white because that is what our daughter wanted, but you could try for a black grand piano if you wanted to go that route.  The piano shape was outlined in pink frosting and we added a "6" for the birthday girls' age.  The piano keys were added with black frosting.  You could also use fondant for the keys and other accents for a cleaner look.

Activities: First the guests created some rhythm sticks to be used in later activities.  Wooden dowels were covered with decorative tape and ribbon.  They also created tambourines made out of paper plates. Ribbons were used to tie small bells to the plates through holes punched around the edge.

The kids used the sticks, tambourines, and their hands for clapping to create rhythmic patterns with their names, or favorite ice cream flavors, or favorite colors, tapping to the beat of the words.


Then the kids were given small instruments (shakers, bells, tambourines, etc.) and were asked to copy rhythms that the party girl's dad made more and more complicated with each repetition - they loved his crazy variations which ended with a complicated selection that went on for so long that Dad fell over from exhaustion!!

The kids watched the Do-Re-Mi sequence from "The Sound of Music" and then recreated a section of it as a group.  Each child was given a card with the note from the musical scale and a picture to help them remember which one they were given and then they sang along with the video, standing and sitting as their particular note came and went - a bit chaotic, but lots of fun!

Goodie Bags: The kids all took home their rhythm sticks and tambourines.  In addition they all received a shaker and musical stickers.  Pencils and notepads were included with music themes and the rest of the bag was filled with a variety of candy.

Ballet, Dance

Age of Birthday Girl: 8 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

When our middle child turned 8 she was taking dance class and wanted a ballet birthday party.  (Who knew at the time that this recreational dance class would turn into the hours and hours of dance it is today?!)

Invitations: We cut ballet slipper shapes out of pink card stock and glued them onto white card stock.  A pink bow was added to the front with "You're invited... (A little bit like this...).  Party details were printed on the back.

 Cake:  We used a 9x13 cake pan and then created a template out of wax paper and carved ballet slipper shapes out of the cake. These were then covered with pink frosting with white in the middle for the inside of the shoes.  Pearlized candy was added around the edge of the white area with a small frosting bow on the toe.  Real pink ribbon was added to turn them into pointe shoes. We were greatly inspired by this tutorial.

Activities: The party guests each decorated crowns found at Oriental Trading Company using stickers, jewels, ribbon, and markers.

The kids also had the chance to take strips of ribbon and tulle to create a simple tutu by tying the strips onto a main waistband piece of ribbon.  Most guests didn't finish at the party and took strips of cloth home with them to finish it up there.

 They all got a brief ballet lesson, led by Dad of course - what a good sport! - and then we played a version of musical chairs where the kids had to dance around the basement and when the music stopped they went to a photo of a ballerina in a certain pose.  They had to copy the pose as they stood next to it.

Then, in two teams, they created poses with props and costumes. The other team got to look at it briefly and then the original team would change something.  The other team had to figure out what had been changed.

Another variety of this game would be to have one team create a pose and the second team looks at it briefly. Then that second team has to recreate it themselves.

Goodie bags: Pink and blue goodie bags were filled with candy treats, ballet/dance stickers, ballet pencils and notepads, hair scrunchies, and bracelets.

Tinkerbell, Fairy Party

Age of Birthday Girl: 5 years old
Age Range of Guests: 3-9 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 2-10 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Invitations: We didn't get very creative with these this year and just bought some Tinkerbell Invitations from the party store.  (Doesn't happen often since part of the fun for the kids is to make their own invitations but this year just didn't come together in time).  The envelopes had related fairy stickers.

Cake:  The cake this year was fun and easy to make.  It was a regular round double layer cake covered in green frosting.  Blue frosting was used to create a small pond with flower sprinkles to act as lily pads.  We found a Tinkerbell cake topper which we placed next to the pond along with some candy flowers.  For a nice finishing touch we placed fake flowers around the base of the cake.

Activities: Fairy themed games were the theme of the day.  We had the kids do a relay race to place fairy flowers along the path.  One child placed a flower then the next would pick one up and run across the flowers that were already placed to put another one down.  They would then run back along the flower path to tag the next person in line and so on.  Once all the flowers were placed the entire team had to run across the flower path one at a time.  Meanwhile there were parents who were blowing bubbles along the path, just for fun!

We took the kids outside for a scavenger hunt of fairy items and locations.  They had to collect items to later create a fairy house.  We also provided fake flowers from the bunch we had used to decorate the cake.  Somehow we managed to not have any photos of the finished products (??!!) but the kids had great fun.  We had also placed hidden fairy messages in our garden which the kids had to find and decode - messages about where to find fairies and how to create great places for them to live.

Goodie bags: Green paper bags filled with Tinker-bell items such as pencils, stickers, notebooks, and jewelry.  We included some candy and chocolate as well.

Strawberry Shortcake

Age of Birthday Girl: 7 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-10 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Invitations: We cut out strawberry shapes from red card stock and glued party information to the back with a "you are invited" sticker on the front.  SC stickers were added to decorate the card and the envelope.

Cake: Using a simple template we cut a round cake into the shape of a strawberry.  Red frosting (it turned out more of a deep shade of pink but still looked OK) covered the cake.  We used yellow jellybeans as the seeds and green fruit roll-ups for the stem and leaves.

Games & Activities: Our first activity was a simple craft.  We found some inexpensive small plastic storage containers in red, pink, and purple at a craft store (Michael's).  Using various stickers, ribbon, and markers the party guests decorated their containers.

Next we created a SC scavenger hunt.  Guests were divided into four teams based on SC characters.  Each team was required to find items both inside and outside
the house, such as the longest blade of grass, something yellow, etc.  After a set amount of time teams gathered to compare results and a winner was declared.


Finally, we did a musical chairs or relay sort of game with pictures of SC characters on paper plates scattered around the basement. Teams had to race to find matches for characters and freeze when the music stopped.  Anyone with a match kept their plates.  Left without a match and you went to the back of your line to try again.  The team who got all the matches first won the game.

Goodie bags:  These were simple pink or red paper bags filled with SC stickers, pencils, erasers, and costume jewelry.  The boys' bags has bug themed items instead of SC.  All bags also included a small assortment of candy.

Hello Kitty

Age of Birthday Girl: 4 years old
Age Range of Guests: 2-7 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-12 years, depending on specific focus & activities

Invitations: Invitations for this party used a simple cut-out of Hello Kitty glued onto pink card stock. The party information was included on the back.

Cake: We took a basic round cake and decorated it using the image of Hello Kitty that we found on some stickers as sort of a template. Frosting was used to make the face and whiskers, with jelly beans for the eyes, nose, and the flower in her hair. We added some sprinkles for extra color and had cupcakes with the candy in the flower shape. We also found some Hello Kitty candles which worked very well on the cake.

Games & Activities: We had a craft for the kids as they arrived. They each had a foam bookmark to decorate as they wished with stickers, markers, and ribbon.

Then we played a game of pin-the-bow-on-Hello-Kitty that we had created for the event. We drew a large Hello Kitty on poster board and then made bows with sticky tape to use in the game.

The other game was a version of Bingo using pictures of Hello Kitty doing various activities. We created the board games by cutting & pasting pictures on the computer into different sequences and combination on each card.

Goodie bags: It was easy to fill bags with all sorts of fun Hello Kitty items from stickers to pencils and erasers to jewelry, etc. We added a few candy treats as well.

Letterboxing

Age of Birthday Boy: 8 years old
Age Range of Guests: 5-10 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 5-13+ years, depending on specific focus & activities

You could very easily do a geo-caching version of this party, especially with an older crowd, but that is an activity we didn't discover until later.

Invitations: The front of the invitation had a compass rose on it and the coordinates of our home. Inside were party details, a map, and a request to come ready to explore outside (socks or long pants, hat, sunscreen, etc).

Cake: The cake was very simple for this party. A round cake was turned into a compass rose design. Cupcakes in coordinating colors had frosting magnifying glasses on them with letters that spelled out a happy birthday message.

Games: The main event for this one was letter-boxing. Ahead of time we planted two letterboxes in a nearby forested area. We then created clues to help the party guests find the boxes. Once the guests had arrived we divided them into two teams (it happened to be older kids and younger kids).

The kids all got a letter-boxing pack which later served as their goodie bag. It was a simple drawstring backpack from Oriental Trading Company. Inside was a compass, a notebook and pencil, a water bottle, a small snack, and a rubber stamp of their choosing with an ink pad (washable ink). A grown-up in each group also carried extra water, a small first-aid kit, wipes for washing hands, and a cell phone to keep in contact with the other group to gauge progress.

The kids had to follow specific instructions to get to the forest and look for the clues to help them find the box once they were there. The two groups set off in different directions once we got to the forest. They would eventually find both boxes but started with different ones to make it less crowded as we walked.

Once a box was found each child stamped their own stamp into the notepad inside the box and left a note in the notebook. Then they used the stamp from the box to make a mark in their own notepad. We stopped for a snack when the two groups met mid-way between the two boxes. Once both groups had found both boxes we walked back home for cake & ice cream.

Goodie Bags: The kids each had their own draw-string backpack as their goodie bag. They got to keep it, the compass, rubber stamp, notepad, and pencil, plus we added candy and stickers once we returned home. In addition each child was given general instructions for letter-boxing and websites for their parents to look up if they were interested in doing it as a family.

This was a super party. The one event took the entire time making planning easy, and the kids loved the detective/exploring part of letter-boxing. For most party-goers this was their first exposure to the activity.

Rapunzel

Age of Birthday Girl: 6 years old
Age Range of Guests: 4-9 years old
Gender of Guests: boys and girls

Potential Age Range of Theme: 3-10 years, depending on specific focus & activities

This was inspired by a wonderful twist on the Rapunzel story found in the book called "Falling For Rapunzel" by Leah Wilcox. If you have not yet read this book you really should. It continues to be a family favorite even though our kids have outgrown picture books.

Cake: We attached two cookie sheets and covered them with foil. Two 9x13 cakes (one chocolate, one vanilla) were placed end to end on the long cookie sheet and frosted to form the tower. One end had small sections cut out to form the top of the towers. For the turrets and balcony railing we used Lego castle pieces from our girls' collection. The long braid was designed using gummy peach rings (by Trolli), cut into thirds and then placed to look like interwoven hair. Frosting vines were graced with large flower candy sprinkles.

Games & Goodies: The kids were given long door handle foam pieces to decorate. We had a variety of stickers, markers, ribbon etc. for them to use. The original idea had been to make them look like Rapunzel's tower but really, they could do whatever they wanted with their craft. It was fun to see the various designs develop.

The main event was the acting out of the book for the party guests. Our three children played the roles of Rapunzel (played by the birthday girl), her maid (little sister), and the handsome prince (big brother) as it was narrated. It is a delightful story of Rapunzel misunderstanding the prince's request to let down her hair resulting in hilarious responses, much to the frustration of the prince.

Following the short skit the kids formed teams and had to unscramble and decode mixed up messages to figure out the target sentence which was "Are you ready for cake?". They were!

Goodie bags included princess and prince stickers, sparkly pencils and notepads, bracelets for the girls and bouncy balls for the boys, gummy candies, and various other candies and chocolates.