A Carnival Birthday Party

For all my readers out there (hahaha ummm all three of you) here is how to throw an awesome carnival birthday bash!

Step 1. Create a hilarious youtube video with your birthday buddy as an invitation and send it to the people you are inviting. Don't be an idiot and put your personal info in the video though. You don't want random strangers seeing the video and showing up at your house (don't worry, I don't have any experience with that, I just saw an article about a facebook invite getting sent out to a crap ton of people and they all showed up at some girls house).

Step 2. Procrastinate. There is plenty of time until the party. Seriously. It's like a month away. You don't even need to think about it right now. Except maybe you should look up cute ideas on the internet. But really that is all that is necessary.

Step 3. Okay, now the party is about a week away. Maybe you should think about it again.

Step 4. All right, for real now, the party is in like 3 days. Get your butt out the door and go shopping. Go to the store 32 times, because you WILL  forget something. I promise.
Get the following items.
Balloons (the regular kind and also the long skinny ones that clowns use to make animals and stuff).
Some sort of container and a bag of starbursts to go in it.
Cookie dough (let's face it. at this point you do not have time to make them from scratch. unless you are super woman. and i'm sorry to disappoint, but i am not).
Chips
POPCORN
Soda or whatever drinks you want
Cake Mixes
Frosting and the kind of icing you write with
Candles (ours were cute ones that looked like ballons)
Veggie and Fruit Trays
Prizes (maybe 5 or so goofy little things)
Streamers!
Marshmallows (S'mores!)
Chocolate (S'mores)
Graham Crackers (S'mores)
Mini Marshmallows (For fondant)
Vanilla Extract (For fondant)
Powdered Sugar (For fondant)
Foamy Posterboard thingy from Staples
Paint/Paint Brushes
Bean Bags
Water Bottles

Step 5. Now it is the day before the party. Put your homework down. Right now. It's not important. Seriously. You'll do it later.


Step 6. Call your friends. If they love you, they'll bake cookies with you. And cakes. And make fondant. And decorate the cakes. (Thanks Han, you are pretty much amazing). What we did was make three cakes. Two with regular frosting and one with fondant. Here they are! I have to say I am very proud of our fondant cake since that was our very first attempt at using it and we made it ourselves! Also, if you notice the blue on the first cake, we had originally written happy birthday in blue, but then ended up not liking it so Han saved the day and got those cute little happy birthday thingys and we just smeared the blue into the white frosting below it. That is a fabulous trick if you ever mess up a cake!

Step 7. Now that all the cooking is done, it is about midnight. Time to start making the photo boards!
Draw them on and paint them!

Step 8. Finish your homework! Gosh why are you so irresponsible and why did you leave it for the last minute?!?! Do you ever learn your lesson?? (The answer is no, I never do).

Step 9. Party Day! Freak out a little.

Step 10. Get your friend's boyfriend to make these games for you. He put them together, and we painted them the day of the party.

One of the games is a bean bag toss that you try to get the bean bags through the holes. The other one you put water bottles on the ledges and try to knock them down.

Step 11. Practice making a few animal balloons. Realize you actually have no idea how to make any. Leave them out for the party goers to have fun with. Set up the photo boards and other games. Decorate with streamers and balloons. Set up all the food.

Step 12. Remember that you forgot your "Who knows us the best Quiz?" Make up questions and write down your answers.


Step 13. Crap! The starbursts! Find a jar to put them in. Wait! Did someone count how many there were?? Okay, you did?? Okay how many? Don't tell anyone! Get out slips of paper for people to write their guesses on.

Step 14. Okay now people are arriving. Calm down. Really. They are all your friends and will not judge if the party is a flop.... hahahah YEAH RIGHT. It has to be perfect.

Step 15. Over the course of the party, encourage people to take pictures, guess how many starbursts there are, play the games (leave out some board games and also it helps to have a ping pong available). At some point go to your bonfire and make s'mores. Also, have everyone take your quiz. The winners of hte starburst game and quiz game get prizes (DON'T MISPLACE THE PRIZES). Cut your cake. Smash cake in your bff's face. After all, there is no way in heck you are following that tradition at your wedding. So this is your only chance for cake smashing.

Step 16. HAVE FUN!

THE END!!

The Birthday Girls!