Carnival Elmo Birthday Party

This past weekend I had so much fun planning my nephew's second birthday party with my sister. We decided a while back that Elmo was the obvious theme to go with since he loves sesame street - but to make it even more interesting, we decided to make it a carnival theme! The color scheme went well with it being 4th of July weekend too! Because there was so much going on - this will be a bit longer of a post - with lots of photos!

First - Colin absolutely loved his Elmo cake. He just stared at the big fondant Elmo cut out on the side of the cake for a long while before blowing out his candles. With the cake, I tried to pull in decorative elements from the dessert table rather than go all cute and sesame street with it...a bit more swanky and sophisticated right?

For the longest time I have been wanting an occasion to do a "dessert bar". I absolutely love the work of Amy Atlas and I look to her blog (and many others including Swanky Tables) for inspiration all the time! Colin's dessert bar consisted of his cake which was chocolate cake with Oreo creme filling, vanilla cupcakes, red velvet cake pops (from Bakerella), cotton candy (freshly made from the cotton candy machine in the backyard) and some fresh popped popcorn. On the other side of the room, my sister created a hot dog, nacho, and hot pretzel bar to round out the carnival theme! I also had a lot of fun creating Colin's Happy Birthday pennant banner!

Yum - The Nacho Bar was a big hit - tons of toppings!

The outside setup which include a snow cone and cotton candy machine, fresh squeezed lemonade and fresh brewed iced tea.

Colin's best friend enjoying the frosting on a cupcake - I made sure to add extra frosting to the cupcakes for this very reason!
Colin loved his cotton candy machine!
I was excited to see Cracker Jacks! What happened to the cute box they used to come in?