It was that time again my twins were turning 5 and our little one was turning 3 and all in August! We all agreed upon a carnival party. Lots of preperation about 3 months worth. Every year I go a little too crazy but this was the worst and most fun. The Invitation: Every year I find a cute invitation online and have them custom printed. Too many invites to make them all.  Decorations: We have one boy and two girls and went with bright green, blue, pink and orange colors to keep the summer carnival upbeat. I made a ticket booth out of a refridgerator box. I cut the back out and a large window in the front,painted it blue, bordered the top with multicolored striped fabric with theme colors(hot glue gun), cut out the word tickets with colored paper and glued at the top. I had a shelf cut out with dowel rods for the ticket rolls. I used large white rolled paper to make banners using paint to hang on our fence leading to the backyard, Multicolored balloons. I borrowed 5 canopy tents to have the games under and situated them in the yard to look like a midway. Each tent had folded tables with vinyl tablecloths all in theme colors, I tied a string in the back to hang colored fabric to hang the posterboard signs for each game. We painted all the signs denoting how many tickets for each game. All the fabric I bought on the sale table at Walmart. For the games I made them all. We had ring toss which I collected 9oz water bottles and hot glued them (50) onto a heavy foam board I painted and filled them all with colored water. Then I bought small rings from OTC to toss. Each game had a special name. This was ring around Ava(My3yr old)For the poster behind the game I took a picture of Ava inside a hula hoop and blew it up. NExt,Tin Can Alley- I wrapped tin cans with construction paper and stacked them and the kids had tennis balls to knock the cans down. Another game I painted egg crates and glued them onto foam board. I painted certain spots red and the kids needed to toss ping pong balls to try and get a red spot. Another game named after my 5yr old daughter was Knock m down golf. I had a picture of her playing miniature golf and I blew it up for the game poster. I bought styrofoam rectangles and sprayed them green, then glued them to foam board and glued golf tees in them and placed ping pong balls on the tees.The kids had to use a water gun to knock the balls off the tees. NExt, Quaterback Jack, after my 5yr old. The kids had to throw mini nerf footballs into holes on the stand up board I made.For each game I had oler kids and friends acting as carnies wearing fun cooky hats. When the kids arrived they each recieve a gift bag with there name painted on it, Each bag had game tickets and custom ticket packets. I spent time on the computer printing colorful large tickets to cooridinate with the game posters. I used the kids photos and click art. I punched and tied 6 custom tickets one for each game. Each child could play each game once with the custom ticket and recieve a big prize! ($1 items at Michaels) Then the kids could play each game as many times as the wished for smaller prizes purchased at OTC. I bought all the prize buckets at the $ store. We had a face painter which the kids love. I set up a tent with a popcorn and snowcone machines my parents worked. All rented. WE had a large tent with tables and chairs for the adults and kiddie tables. I made centerpieces. Flowerpots to look like party flowers. Very cute. I put small buckets on the tables with old fashion candy favorites, Dots, licorice, pops! Balloons everywhere! Colored table cloths. For food we had hotdogs for the kids and little chicken wings, salad, potato salad, Chicken skewers, teriaki beef skewers, fruit platters. Wine and beer and lots of juice boxes. Cake: I made a stacked cake with dots and stripes in theme colors and confetti candles.Cupcakes to surround in sprayed with theme colors. For the finale we had an acrobatic spiderman show. Not so sure we needed to do this with all the games but the kids were crazy about spiderman. He was a big hit. Favors, the kids had bags full of prizes and I designed custom t-shirts using transfers I printed on the computure., large bubble wands $1 at walmart. This was a great success. The 25 kids and 50 adults had a great time! A lot of prep work but worth the effort!