Carnival Advertising and other Craziness

 

Our school carnival was this weekend and BSB and I got involved sharing our insanity unique talents. I worked with my friend, the PTA president on all of the advertising for the event. I think when it comes to school events, a lot of people think you have to keep things basic because of the quantity of kids/fliers, etc. you are dealing with. Now that may be the smart thing to do, but this blog isn't called "My Smartness" is it? Some how I got Lindy (PTA President) on board with my ideas, which was great because I got to design things, but she did most of the grunt work. For example. The big ticket-invitation above was designed to print 2/sheet in black ink on red card stock. That's not such a big deal, but then I gave her my circle punches and suggested that the corners of each "ticket" should be punched so it would look like the real thing. I think everyone loved them, but Lindy might have been cursing my name by the 300th flier. 

The next flier was meant to be more of a newsy one for the parents, so the assembly wasn't bad. I had fun playing with all of the circus style fonts I have found on-line, trying to get the feel of a vintage circus/carnival poster. (The original had the school name on the banner.)

The last reminder flier went out the day before the carnival. It was printed on quarter sheets of paper in color, and we (I mean, Lindy) stapled tickets to each flier that the kids could bring with them to the carnival and redeem there. I used this great free download from Sprik Space, and then modified it quite a bit, so that it wouldn't use much ink, due to the quantity we had to print, and added our information. While Lindy was stapling tickets, someone in the office asked why we couldn't just print the ticket part on to the flier and save all of the stapling. Her response was "what's the fun in that?" Which is why she goes along with my crazy schemes. Anyway, I think the fliers definitely worked to generate a lot of excitement amongst the family, as did our other insane method of advertising:

We had my Silhouette humming cutting all of the letters and pennants for the banners on these signs. Lindy bough foam core poster-board so they would be stiff and last all week. We used scrapbook paper and ribbon that I had on hand and I cut while Lindy glued it all on the boards. We used hot glue for the ribbons and pennants and only glued the top part down so that when hung, they would blow in the wind like this...

There are no buses at the school, so most all of the parents have to drop-off and pick-up their kids from school. We had the six posters hung up in a series, so they would keep reading as they drove (and waited in line). The final poster had the info. It was fun that my kids were so excited to tell their friends that I had made the signs.

At the carnival was when BSB's insanity got to shine. He is a man of many talents--making balloon animals being one of them. You may recall our Halloween Circus where he put his skills to work.

Well, he busted them out again for this Carnival. But what makes me smile, even more than the 250+ balloons he tied (with out taking a break or sitting down for 3 hours), is that the costume was his idea.

I don't think he could pull off the clown thing--he would make a scary clown, but he makes a rather dapper old-fashioned carnival balloon animal artist guy (what is the correct term for that? Btw, if you Google images for carnival worker, be prepared that they aren't pretty! :-0)

He sewed his own pouch back for the Halloween event, and went and purchased the hat, suspenders, and bow-tie for this event. He actually had some people ask him for his card (which he doesn't have), but it is nice to know he has something to fall back on if the Geology thing doesn't work out for him.

(I had a bit of fun editing this photo. I thought it looked rather vintage with his get-up and her parasol. I need one of those next year.)

A good time was had by all at the carnival, and we all fell asleep immediately that night!

Stay tuned for the details on the ice cream party games and our personal bread-making class this week! And if you like my crazy party ideas, I'd love for you to go and vote for My Insanity as one of The Circle of Moms Top Party Planning Moms. (You'll have to scroll way down to find it right now!) Thanks so much!