Manic Mama Miles: Elmo Carnival Decorations

I can say that decorating for Addy's Elmo Carnival Party was one of the most fun parties to decorate for...and also one of the most frustrating parties to decorate for. I decided to try my hand at making carnival style marquee letters. That frustration will be detailed in another post, but this post is reserved for all the other decorations from the party.

I had seen a lot on Pinterest for carnival parties & initially I thought I might want to do red & turquoise as my colors. However, I found a super cute Elmo dress for Addy that was pink & I decided to go with pink & red instead. I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but I had a LOT of pink decorations from Addy's Look Whoo is 1 birthday party & the Pink Diamond Damask baby shower, so that was incentive enough. I had some basic red decorations from Addy's Hungry Caterpillar party. I also had some red & white decorations that I used at the Ahoy! It's a Boy! nautical shower & again for our Memorial Day party. I like to reuse if possible. Here is the group of paper fans that I started with. I have gotten a lot of these paper fans from Party City & Oriental Trading. I found the red & white striped ones that look more carnival-like from Hobby Lobby.

I started by taping up a red & white striped tablecloth up on the wall as my backdrop. This was just a simple plastic tablecloth that I found cheap at Hobby Lobby. Then I hung a pink paper fan in the center to be my starting point. I use clear line & thumb tacks to attach the paper fans to the ceiling.

Then I just started adding more paper fans.

Here is the work in progress. Can you tell I am a total mess when it comes to decorating for parties?

Once I had all the fans up, I added in the lights (read more about that here).

Then I got to work decorating the table. I LOVE to implement a crate on my table somehow. I am not sure my obsession with them. I used a crate for this party for the boxes of popcorn. I balanced the height of the crate with a carnival cupcake holder that I got online at Oriental Trading. It held the Carnival Popcorn Cupcakes.

Next to the cupcake holder, I put one of Addy's Elmos. This Elmo is like a Mr. Potato Head & can be dressed up in different outfits. He wore his circus bowtie for this event. Beside Elmo is a Ferris Wheel picture frame. It was silver, but I wanted it pink for the party & to put in Addy's room. As my husband will tell you, I will pretty much paint anything. : ) I filled the frame with pictures of Addy from the past year.

One the crate side of the table is the popcorn maker that sparked my whole idea for the Elmo carnival. I also had a bubble gum machine that I ordered off of Amazon. The bubblegum got gone crazy quick. Maybe I should have gotten one that actually required money? ; ) Haha. I set up a stuffed Elmo by the crate. He sat there most of the party, except for every now & again Addy's friend Gabriela would come by & snatch him up. She is also obsessed with Elmo. Too cute.

Most of the serving trays were things that I already had, except for the carnival cupcake holder I mentioned earlier & the trays that the caramel apples were in. They came from Hobby Lobby. The popcorn boxes with the actual popcorn came from Hobby Lobby as well & the ones with cotton candy came from Oriental Trading. The table skirt also came from OT. We used an Elmo bucket that Addy used for trick or treating last year to put the silverware in.