How to Throw A Neighborhood Carnival
Balloon Time paid for the carnival but all opinions and ideas are from our Neighborhood!
So this has become a fun neighborhood tradition. I have a fantastic neighbor, Shauna, who delights in planning and preparing for this gathering every year. So when Balloon Time approached me to throw a Party on a Dime I jumped at the chance and asked my neighbor if she’d like help with the carnival. Of course her answer was YES!
I took a bunch of fun pictures and will give you walk through of some of the best tips and tricks for creating a low budget, but amazing Neighborhood Carnival!
To start off you want to gather a lot of help. Here’s a list of things to ask your neighbors for.
- Ask neighbors if they have any carnival type games they could bring. A lot of games can be made quickly if neighbors are willing to put just a bit of time into it.
- Ask for prize donations. Everyone has a bunch of toys and candy they want to get rid of and the kids LOVE it.
- Ask for food donations. We served everyone hot dogs and the children could get snow cones, cotton candy, and popcorn but we had people bring chips and other side items.
- Last but not least, get volunteers to run the stations. We asked pre-teens. They were perfect. Almost too old to play but love helping out!
Shauna is a graphic designer so everything looks amazing because of her skills. She designed this Carnival Pass for each child to wear around their neck.
The helper at each station would then mark off once the child had completed that game or station. This way we didn’t have huge lines at certain stations. Well, other than face painting.
 Now onto some of the games!
 We had a ball toss.
Balloon darts
Bean Bag Toss
A Cupcake Walk (the cake walk on a much more manageable scale.)
Face Painting. We have some serious face painting skill in our neighborhood.
Of course a fun photo booth.
Spin art which takes me back a bit!
A fishing pond
A little tip the bottle
And a little train ride to make the whole carnival super fun.
And the food…
Snacks included snow cones with several yummy flavors,
Cotton Candy
and popcorn. What more could you ask for?
So do you think you could pull together a neighborhood carnival? This one has taken a few years to get to this point, so start small and see what you can get together. You’ll be surprised at the skill and talents just hiding behind your neighbors doors.
And if you liked this party make sure you go vote for us on Balloon Time‘s Facebook page. We could win $5,000 donated to Eagle Condor Humanitarian a charity that is near and dear to us.
