I am planning on a Circus/Carnival Theme party for my son's 6th birthday this June. I am planning now (Feb.) because I am having another baby boy in March and need to have everything organized ahead!  So far I have many ideas and would love to share them with you.  1.) I found an adorable idea for the invitations at www.littlebigman.com where they can customize the invitation with my son's picture (or a clown etc.) to look like a ticket that you would use to get into the "Big Top" or a movie, a ballgame etc. 2.) When the kids arrive they will all be seated and provided with solid colored cone hats that they each will decorate with stickers, pom-poms, pipe cleaners etc. and wear throughout the party. They will also be given a solid colored paper sack to decorate to carry their party favors home in.  3.) I am hiring a husband/wife professional clown team. The husband does a 30 min. magic show and unique balloon art.  Each child will get a cutome made balloon.  The wife does "whole face painting" and she will turn each guest into a clown. 4.) The children will be given "tickets" to purchase carnival food from the assortment of booths (which will be situated under an outdoor "big top canopy" to shield the sun) that will be manned by the parents. (popcorn, snowcones, corndogs, cotton candy, fresh lemonade, etc.) They can also use the tickets to go on a pony ride, and to jump in the moon walk. 5.) I plan to have a background made up for picture taking of the birthday boy with each of his clown friends, one on my good 35mm camera (for my scrapbook) and one on a Polaroid for each guest to take home with him/her. I will have made up ahead of time plain cards on card stock that are decorated on the front with the date and a title "Clownin' Around at Kyler's Carnival" then use mounting adhesives to mount the Polaroid's inside each card. (I did this at his bowling party last year and on the front it said "I had a Ball!" all the kids and parents loved it.)  6.) As far as decorating; there will be lots of colorful balloons and streamers everywhere, plates, cups, napkins etc. with clowns on them, Barnum and Bailey style posters here and there. I also am looking for some circus type music to have playing the whole time in the background 7.) The party favor bags will include a small bag of Circus Peanuts (my son's favorite), animal crackers, foam clown nose, plastic toy tigers and elephants, deflated balloons, and theme stickers.   I am very excited to have this party and so is my son. Hopefully all will go well and all the children will have a wonderful time.