Cheap Ways to Decorate a Huge Community Centre Room for a 7th Birthday Party

Byatt

Lucy, I have no ideas just wanted to say what a lovely mum you are, and I am sure it will be a success. Let us know how it goes. I would love to be there! And I'm late 50's.

narabanekeater

can I come with sounds amazing?

Spendless

The food at any circuses I've been to in recent years have been very funfair-ish. Eg hotdogs, mini burgers, candy floss, popcorn. If any of that isn't suitable for any reason, what about walking round the shops and looking for anything that could be related to your theme. I'm thinking of things like those mini packs of animal biscuits, teddy pom pom crisps, billy bear ham, the small bottles of panda pop. When it was my son's 12th birthday a few months back I didn't bother with desserts (they'd had pizza/wings/wedges take outs and I didn't want any washing up -lol) instead I went to my local co op and bought 2 boxes of ice cream bars that were on offer. You'd either need a freezer to store at venue or someone to go and get them whilst you're there and you might need to ask shop in advance to save them for you just in case it's a red hot day and there's a run on them.

Spendless

Several ideas here.

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/circus_party.html

I love the circus peanuts mention. You used to be able to buy sweets called sweet peanuts. No idea if you still can or even if they do contain any real nuts-in which case you'd have to be careful of nut allergies.

ETA _looks like you can still buy them.

http://www.aquarterof.co.uk/sweet-peanuts-p-86.html

PixieDust

99_p stores sell little buckets of candy floss.

PixieDust

You could either make paper cones like this for popcorn and decant out of a big cheap bag (99_p type store) http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=622&tbm=isch&tbnid=orsxaW7U4V8dWM:&imgrefurl=http://www.livinglocurto.com/2010/07/popcorn-treat-cones/&docid=8JkSFKYHcKM1KM&imgurl=http://www.livinglocurto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/popcorn-cones1.jpg&w=500&h=333&ei=GEfBT9P_Eci20QXtirWmCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=110&vpy=301&dur=635&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=165&ty=105&sig=115436703154234883230&page=1&tbnh=132&tbnw=174&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0,i:88

or use plain vending cups (available from same type stores . With stickers on if you're feeling adventurous

and the same type of shop also often sell small, but "proper" lollipops (like mini willy-wonka type lollies from the film)...you could stick them in polystyrene or oasis or something. On the way out, everyone could trail around each "stall" and pick one of everything (wheteveryou have for puddings iyswim?)

Lizbetty

Thanks for the ideas!!

And thanks so much for the vote of confidence but I'm not really a fab mum btw, I'm generally a bit rubbish with all this anxiety stuff Luckily DH is hands on so the kids don't miss out on too much, apart from me taking them places myself very often. I try and make up for that with things like this, but I never enjoy them myself because I completely freak out on the day and spend most of the day palpitating :rotfl:

I have ordered a cheap clown costume from Ebay btw and we've decided to get a huge board, staple the costume to it (carefully - dh says he will use it for dd2's birthday next year!) and cut a hole out for the face, draw clown's hair on etc and take the kid's pics once they've had their faces painted, and get them developed after the party instead of party bags,maybe on a keyring depending on offers, etc.. That was on a link that someone posted btw - so thanks so much for all your help!!! xx

sisbod

I know it is months later but PLEASE how did the circus party go???
Ive just been reading though old posts and saw this and even now it made me excited to know how it went!