Our invitation was in the shape of a ticket and it read: "Hip hip hooray, the carnival's in town.  Come join the fun Quincy's turning one!"  We are having games, face painting, food, and a big surprise! So don't be late.  November 6,2004 at the King Fairgrounds (that's our last name).  Then of course the address.  Since Quincy's birthday was in November we had it inside at my cousin's apartment cabana; so it didn't cost anything for the rental.  People thought that i was crazy for having such a big party for a baby birthday, well for his first birhtday nothing was too big for my baby.  I started brainstorming, by thinking about the carnival's that i have been to.  Rides, facepainting, games that you lose you money on, good food, tickets, and balloons. The kids all got a bag that had their name on it and were given 20 tickets and the parents were given 10 tickets. Most of the kids on my guest list were very young so the parents got to get involved with the games. Everything cost a ticket, food, games, and the ride.  I rented a inflatable bouncy house from www.partyhoppers.net really cheap, and it was huge. I had a friend facepaint.  i set up a couple of games: "knock down cans" i set up three empty cans and set them up like a pyrimid then a ball to knock it down. "Pin the tail on the donkey" a classic. "Darts"  the darts that the kids threw were magnetic.  "Basketball hoop" another classic. "Fish" i used a plastic pool that i bought Quincy during the summer and the fish had a loop attached to the mouth and kids had a fishing pole. At every game there was a sign that asked for a certain amount of tickets so the kids would have to count how many tickets the game took made the kids count the parents loved that! All of the material that i used were from the dollar store or i made it. Each game they played they got a prize, coloring books and crayons, bubbles, crazy straws, When the guest arrived they took a picture at our photobooth, it was decorated with a red plastic table cloth two bunches of balloons on the sides and a "Happy 1st Birthday" banner.  We used the pictures that we took to make the thank you cards that we sent out after the party. A lot of our guest really like the photobooth because a lot of the parents didn't have recent pictures of their kids, so that was nice. I made Quincy's cake.  At Michael's craft store i bought a cake attachment that was horse carrousel, so the cake was on the bottom, and then i had decorated four horses and a yellow tent top. It was magical.  Each guest had their own cup cake.  I baked indivdual cake inside a ice cream cone and then frosted it like whipped cream and sprinkles.  That went well with all the kids.  All in all the birthday party went great, Quincy did what all one year old's do run around and look. He had a great time. I hope that you can use any of my ideas for your carnival! Good luck!