For my nephews second birthday I am throwing him a carnival/circus party.  I have reserved our community center (no charge) for more room and incase of rain. I made the invitations on the computer.  I used clipart of an open circus tent and put a picture of my nephew wearing a clown wig and a clown nose in the tent.  There are also clowns and circus animals and balloons on the sides of the tent and on the top it reads come to _________s birthday carnival!.   Each invite has a red carnival ticket for the kids, which they will bring to the party.  When kids arrive they turn in their ticket at the ticket booth (made out of an appliance box painted blue, red & white with an arch for the window) and receive a string of tickets... one for each activity, a big loot bag with a circus picture printed on it that says I went to _________s Birthday Carnival! with a blank line for their names (their parents do this for them with permanent markers...it is always good to have these at parties so you can write kids' names on their goodie bags and prizes), and some money for their food and snacks.  I made fake 2 dollar bills on the computer and put my nephews clown pic in the middle where the faces go and printed them out on green paper and cut them out about the size of monopoly money.     Decorations include streamers of red, blue, and yellow.  I am buying a gross of balloons from oriental trading company (all colors) and also a pack of 100 spray painted balloons from ssww.com which have stars or stripes or dots on them in primary colors. These look very carnivalish and old fashioned. I plan to fill them all, either with helium from the tank we are renting or with air. I am also buying a couple mylar balloons clowns and elephants. I bought tag board from the dollar store of red, blue, & yellow and I plan to cut out stars to hang from the ceiling. Some stars will have curling ribbon attached for more decoration. I'm hanging up strings of Christmas lights (all colors) around to add color.  Finally, I'm using a 12 foot parachute of primary colors (found at a garage sale) as a ôbig topö I'm going to pin it up in the center and use string to hold up the sides (there's about 8 or 10 handles on each triangle of the parachute so I can easily tie string to each and pin each string to the ceiling).  I am thinking of making a photo op by using a piece of thin board, painting a cute clown on it and cutting out the face so kids can get their pic taken with it. I was having a tough time finding the right center pieces so I ended up making my own out of plastic popcorn boxes found at target for a buck each. I weighed them down with balloon weights and taped yellow construction paper cut in the shape of clouds to each of the four sides to look like popcorn.  I will attach a bunch of balloons to the weight for a center piece.  I also found these cute little teddy bear clowns at the dollar store.  I made fake lollipops and candies out of Styrofoam discs wrapped with bright colored cellophane tied once on each side with curling ribbon to look like candy or I stuck a stick in it and tied it with curling ribbon at the stick to make it look like a lollipop. Alternating with the popcorn box center pieces, I'll use my candy and clown bear center pieces at the long tables we will be using.        The kids will use their tickets for games and activities 1. Pick a Duck: where kids pick a plastic duckie (bought from oriental trading) with a star on the bottom out of a kiddie pool. You get three tries...but odds are that they will most likely win and if they don't win after three tries they can keep playing till they do win.  2. Elephant Ring Toss: bought from oriental trading. also play till you win 3. Fishing: another appliance box painted like bottom of the ocean. Kids use a fishing rod with a clothes pin attached.  The person inside the box hooks on a prize and they reel em in.   4. Feed the Lion: A big cardboard box with a lion painted on the bottom with a huge hole for the mouth. Kids try to throw bean bags in the mouth.    Kids play till they win.  5. Face Painting: I bought tons of face paint after Halloween on clearance.  I've made a sign out of a piece of white tag board that shows which kind of painting you can get.  Ideas like a flower, a smile face, spider, butterfly, ladybug, fish, etc. 6. Balloon Animals: My younger sister will be doing this dressed as a clown (clown costumes were also bought after halloween clearance sale).  7. Rides:  We are borrowing a tiny carousel from a friend (the ones you see at the mall that cost a quarter to ride and has three horses.) And I am also buying my nephew an up & down roller coaster ride along toy as a birthday gift that I'll be setting up for all the small kids to ride on.  It's being purchased from Target.  It's a short hilly track where kids sit on the car and push off from the start of the track. Its not really a roller coaster but I'm sure they'll have fun with it.  Its about $90.  Another ôrideö is a six flags kangaroo jumper bought from lakeside.com only $20(also a gift for my nephew) I would really love to rent one of those bounce castles for him but I cant afford it...I'm sure he'll have fun with this though...and he gets to keep it!    Prizes for the games are all being ordered from oriental trading. Kids will get big bouncy balls (no small ones because of choking) lip whistles (whistles in the shapes of lips in red, blue, and yellow), little bottles of bubbles, punch balloons, ice cream shooters, inflatable hammers, balloon cars (my nephew loves these), and zoo animal poppers.  Prizes that kids of all ages would like but are fun and safe for my 2 year old nephew.  Kids will also take home their balloon animal and a couple helium balloons too.    For food we are having corn dogs, salads, beans, veggies & dip, fruit, chips, popcorn, and cotton candy.  Family usually brings a dish to share so that helps a lot. If I can't afford to rent a popcorn machine I plan to just use an air popper.  I've ordered red and white pop corn bags and I'm going to fill them with popcorn and a small prize in the middle of the bag just like cracker jacks. Kids will love this. The kids have to use their fake money to buy a corn dog or hot dog, the popcorn, the cotton candy, a big swirly lollipop, and their juice.  I'm looking for bug juice to buy for the kids because my nephew and his best friend love it and its 100% vitamin C but if I can't find it cheap enough I'll give them juice boxes. We usually order a cake, but just incase there's not enough, I'm making cupcakes. I'm going to use this clown cut out I bought from the dollar store and make it look like the clown is holding a bunch of balloons(the cup cakes) by making different colored frostings with food coloring and taping curling ribbon to the bottom of each cup cake, then tape all the curling ribbon strings to the clowns hand.    We bought a balloon drop for under 10 bucks at a party store and these party poppers that you twist and confetti and streamers shoot out for when he opens presents.  The party poppers we found at the dollar store 3 for a dollar.  They're perfectly safe for indoors because they are spring activated and theres no sparks.  We also found a CD with circus music to play during the party.   My younger siblings and cousins have agreed to man the booths and some of them are dressing as clowns.  IÆm planning on 20 kids and 30 adults.  ItÆs pretty spendy but I know my nephew and the rest of the family will enjoy it!