My First Circus Invitation Sale!

I have had my first sale of the circus invitations!

It's funny that this is the first sale of these invitations ever, because, of all my listings, this one generates, by far, the most interest. I can see this by how many people view my blog postings about them.

Anyway, Lena was my first circus invitation customer, ordering 50 invitations. She asked for, and received, a few customizations, including a "Ringling Brothers" type logo treatment for her kids' names for the back of the card, the addition of a clown to the images that appear in the tent doorway, and, of course, her children's faces added to the images.

They came out great!

It took me FOREVER to print out, cut and assemble all the invitations, work that I spread out over several days. After many hours of work, I had to wonder if I were making at least minimum wage.

Still, it was satisfying to finally put the package together for her. In addition to the 50 ordered invitations, I included all the comps that I created before we got one that was approved (five extra cards), stickers for the backs of the envel0pes with the exclusive type treatment that I designed for her and a few bonus envelopes (I always mess up on one or two envelopes when I'm addressing them).

Here's the etsy listing for these: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25788953

Etsy Nibble!

The original point of this blog was to support my etsy store. Over the past few months, I've lost a little of the obsession of using my beautiful little Craft Robo, quite possibly my most fun and exciting craft purchase ever (and one whose cost I justified by pointing out the thousands I was going to make on etsy).

I've had a bit of a dry spell on etsy for a few months. You get sales by keeping your store up-to-date (newer postings come up first in the search results) and by actively promoting your store in ways that I haven't been taking advantage of lately (one is by blogging about your various activities), so it's something of a miracle that someone actually did stumble upon one of my listings, for my circus/carnival invitations and asked about them.

She's planning a "Three-Ring Circus" theme for her three kids. In the works: a music instructor to entertain the wee ones, a popcorn machine, a bouncy structure, clown performance and other fun activities.

Fun! I love people who plan in advance (it makes my own obsessive planning six months ahead of time seem a little less crazy).

Hopefully she'll respond positively to my message back to her.... we'll see!

Best circus party ever

Well, in retrospect, the theme really should have been a carnival party, rather than a circus party, as any elephants, tigers, trapeze artists and other big-top attractions were sorely lacking, however, the carnie atmosphere permeated everthing.

Guests were greeted at the door and given a paper bracelet that read "Admit one • All games" on it. Tad's parents then offered them a balloon animal (they had practiced creating hats, swords and a basic animal shape -- they were quite good), then they were shown into the back yard to begin the fun.

(bracelet as shown on young party guest's wrist as she plays the duck lasso game)

I showed them their goodie bags, each marked with their names. I told them that this party was not one where they would simply be given goodie bags at the end, but that they would have to earn their prizes. As they did, they had a ready spot to stash their loot.

We had five games that the kids played to earn tickets with which to "purchase" prizes:

• Ring Toss (shown below), a lawn game that I picked up at Freddie's for 40% off. They got four tries and were given that many tickets.
• Duck Lasso, with floating ducks that kids tried to lasso out of a galvanized metal tub. When they got a duck, they turned that duck over to find a number (1 to 3) and were given that number of tickets.
• Clown Dunk. I hung a laminated clown face in a tipped over wastebasket and invited kids to try to bean him with a collection of water balloons that I'd spent party of the morning filling up.
• Go Fish. This was a magnetic fishing game I got for the boys at Target many years ago and which they never really played with much. My carnie counted to 30 while the children tried to get as many of the fish as they could.
• Bottle Splash. Party goers tried to knock over number of plastic drink bottles with super soakers.
  
  
  
  

One last game was the Candy Count. Kids could guess the number of pieces of candy in a jar. The guesses were written on tickets, so they could have multiple guesses, if they wanted.

I was very gratified to see how quickly the kids dived into the games and really got into the spirit of things. Of course, the big reason why they got jazzed so quickly over the games was that the tickets they earned could be redeemed for candy and toys at the concession stand, below.

My husband, Tad, manned the concession stand. You can see him spinning the cotton candy above (note: cotton candy does not keep well if you spin it and let it sit -- it attracts moisture and dissolves! You can save it in ziplock baggies, if you need to). Over the last few weeks, I picked up little things I thought kids would be interested in wherever I could find them cheap. Century Novelty was a good find. I got foam glider kits, body glitter, squirt guns, clown noses and other little things from them. At other spots, I picked up lip gloss, puzzle sets and a bunch of assorted candy. Some sparkley headbands with mylar flowers and technicolor feathers were a huge hit with the girls. Tad found some great party favors at Target and brought home wooden snakes and whoopie cushions. I sorted things into various baskets and marked them with tags that let the guests know how many tickets would be needed to redeem each item. Small pieces of candy were worth one ticket. The foam gliders and lip gloss were relatively luxurious and worth five tickets each.

Once kids got the idea, they dove into each game enthusiastically, quickly filling up their goodie bags (below).

A lot of the fun of the games goes to my enthusiastic "carnies," who are known, in their other lives, as the kids' grandma, grandpa, Uncle Johnny and godmother Sarah. They were great and kept the kids going from one fun activity to another.

My boys, above, are looking over the concession stand. Later in the party, the kids would virtually wipe it out (which was good -- I didn't need the sugary leftovers in the house afterward!).

I polled several of the kids after the party and even the most jaded of them pronounced the party a great success!

Thank goodness it's over for another year, though. And what a relief! I love the backyard birthday party (last year the boys had voted for a bowling party, which was not nearly as much fun for me to plan) and am soooo glad that this one was so successful!

Check out the circus/carnival invitations that I designed for this party.

Circus/Carnival theme birthday party invitations

Here are the invitations I designed for my boys' birthday party, which is coming up next Saturday.

You spin the wheel on the left and as you do, a message about the upcoming party scrolls across the top while, cute images, including the faces of the boys (who are actually Colin and Ethan, but I changed the names for my etsy listing), circus animals and tasty treats, appear through the tent opening underneath.

For the party, I'll have carnival-type games, like a shooting gallery, a ring toss and something involving floating ducks (still have to work out exactly what happens with the ducks). My mother-in-law has gamely agreed to attempt to make balloon animals for the kids when they come in the door.

As kids play the games, they will earn tickets that they can redeem for concessions, which will include cotton candy (I picked up a cotton candy maker from Goodwill some months ago) and popcorn.

Fun little toys will be packed in popcorn bags for goody bags -- kids will "fish" for their goody bags.

In the past, I have used Oriental Trading (OTC) for the toys. This year, I decided to give their competition a try and have ordered a variety of toys from Century Novelty (there have been times when some of the items from Oriental Trading have been less than spectacular -- pretty much as described, however, I didn't read the print clearly enough and some items were disapppointingly tiny for instance (and, once, a set of paper kaleidescopes simply didn't work at all) -- they have a return policy, but I haven't taken advantage of it, so it's possible that they would have, in the end, made everything all right -- I just didn't have the time to deal with it in past years)

So, long story short, we'll see how their competition fares. One nice thing about Century Novelty is that you can order items by whatever quantity you wish, but at OTC, you must purchase by a set quantity (12, 8, 144, typically). This gave me more flexibility. We will only have nine guests and this will eliminate some waste. Also, among other toys, the boys will receive squirt guns and gliders and the girls will get body glitter and lip balm/gloss (which I'll purchase at a local store).

Other items in the goody bags: red foam clown noses, 3d tropical fish puzzles and candy (purchased from the dollar tree locally).

This card is on sale at my store on etsy: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25788953 -- take a look!

Other circus party ideas (some of them quite elaborate!) can be found here.

And please leave comments -- I'd love to hear some feedback. If you have ideas for games, activities or other party-related topics, let me know! (particularly if you have them before this Saturday -- I'm getting close to crunch time!)