For months now, Blair has been all about the circus. She sings all of the songs on the Circus KidSongs DVD and wants to be a clown for Halloween… and when she grows up. Olivia Saves the Circus is one of her very favorite books. So it was only fitting that we have a circus birthday party this year. It turned out so cute!
The inspiration for the party obviously came from what Blair wanted based on her experience with KidSongs and Olivia the pig – clowns and lion tamers were the most important!
The decorations were a mixture of things. The first thing I bought was the plates and napkins from Target.
Then the theme really took off with the circus party printables from Bird’s Party Cirus Birthday.


The printables from Bird’s Party were perfect. Brad’s mom and little sister spent weeks cutting, decorating, and glittering them, and his big sister and I put it all together for the party!

The table decorations were made of plastic popcorn boxes I got at the dollar store. In each box, we put one piece of styrofoam and filled it in with aquarium rocks to hold the suckers and circus icons.

Brad’s mom made the suckers out of the colored Wilton candy melts and Wilton Big Top molds.

We sent the suckers and little popcorn boxes of animal crackers home as favors. I filled small treat bags and tied them with a ribbon. (I really wanted to do popcorn, but we haven’t given Blair popcorn yet, and we had kids younger than her at the party. Our pedi says she can have popcorn when she can spell it!)

I like to do food that Blair likes and try to make it work with the theme. The circus party food:
- Hot dogs
- Elephant shaped PB&J “for the elephant lovers”
- Lion shaped ham and cheese “for the lion tamers”
- “Juggling fruit” skewers
- “Tight rope” string cheese
- “Elephant ear” chips
- Zebra pies
- Pimento cheese on raisin bread
- Chocolate covered frozen banana “monkey pops”

I used the Wilton Jungle Pals Cookie Cutter Set for the sandwiches. The zebra pie recipe is here on my blog. I made the banana pops at the beginning of the week and stored them until the party. I wrapped a piece of styrofoam in wrapping paper and stuck them in for serving.
The cake my mom made was amazing as always. The “lion tamer” was on Blair’s strawberry layer. The top tent layer was pound cake, and the happy face layer was chocolate. I thought it was a perfect time to do a non-stacked cake. Mom found the perfect cake stand for the occasion!



The lion tutorial is on the My Cake School blog.

For the party entertainment, my sister Molly and her boyfriend were the clowns. I could not have hired a better pair of clowns – they were perfect! I bought the wigs, suspenders, tights, noses, and rainbow eyelashes at the party store. Molly did the rest – how cute were they?!

Blair LOVED it! It’s a good thing; I was scared of clowns as a child.


We are blessed to have very talented family and friends. My parents’ neighbor came to make balloon animals for the kids. He is amazing! They had bracelets, monkeys on trees, fishing poles with fish, poodles, horses, and he even made some antlers!


Perfect for Josh’s getup: a balloon hat and fishing pole with a precious fish!
One of Brad’s mom’s friends came and painted faces. Everyone looked so cute!

We had a bouncy house for the sole reason that I had never really allowed Blair to play in one. Plus Olivia is the Queen of the Trampoline in her book!


Two other ideas I took from Bird’s Party were the duck pond, which every one enjoyed more than you would think and the photo booth.




We all had a blast in the photo booth. Brad’s mom made the frame part, and I had the easy job of gathering items for the booth box. At Halloween, that type stuff is everywhere! The cost does add up quickly though!


More to come about the big 4!