It's a Circus in Here! Circus Birthday Centerpieces

My niece's first birthday was in September and we threw her a vintage circus themed party. One of the cutest outcomes of the decorating frenzy were the table centerpieces. You may notice the second centerpiece from the left has a number one. Here I will only address how to make the silhouette centerpiece. You will love these centerpieces and all of your guests will want to take one home with them!

Materials:

• Popcorn containers (these circus themed boxes were found at Michaels)
• Circus silhouettes from The Graphics Fairy
• Graphic 45 Le Cirque scrapbook paper
• Patterned scrapbook paper, for backs of silhouettes
• Striped plastic bendy straws
• Floral foam
• Lollipops
• Crinkle Paper Shreds (I found mine at the dollar store)
• Hot glue
• Glue stick
• Scissors and X-acto Knife

Step 1: Assembling the Images

Choose your images or silhouettes (I got my silhouettes from the Graphics Fairy) and print them out. Cut out the images using an X-acto knife. After the silhouettes are all cut out, you may want to trace around the edges with a black marker. This is done to cover up any white paper edges that may be showing.

Once the silhouettes are ready, you can paste them onto the patterned scrapbook paper you have chosen. Finally, cut the patterned paper by following the contours of the silhouettes. Choose some images to cut out from the Graphic 45 Le Cirque paper and cut these out as well.

While you are cutting out all of your circus images, you can start warming up your hot glue gun so you don't drive yourself crazy waiting for it to heat up up like I always do! When all images are cut, you can attach them to a striped straw. Cut a small slit at the top of the straws. This is where the images will be sitting. But first! put a little bit of hot glue inside the straw - near the slits - and then insert your image. When all straws are attached you can set everything aside for final assembly.

Step 2: Lollipops

The lollipops that I used had a big label that covered most of the swirled pattern of the candy. If your candy does too, simply unwrap the lollipops and replace with clear saran wrap. This way the candy stays clean and you can see all the colors and swirls.
 
Now that you have your candy prepared, pick out some of the "stamps" from the Graphic 45 circus pack. Glue one stamp to the front of each lollipop. Now we are ready to put it all together!

 A note about the lollipops: The candy I chose ended up being a little heavy for the centerpiece and, as a result, tipped over several times. You can buy a smaller lollipop (Which I couldn't find anywhere!!! But I digress...) or put something heavy at the bottom of the popcorn container when you piece it all together to prevent this from happening.


Step 3: Piecing the Puzzle Together

Glue a good sized piece of floral foam in each popcorn container. My piece went up about halfway through the container. Place the silhouette in the back/center by sticking the straw into the foam. You may need to trim the straw down, depending on the size of you container and image. The lollipops will go in the middle on either side of the silhouette, and finally, the scrapbook image will go in the front.

Finish it off by adding the crinkled paper shreds as filler.


TAAADAAA! Now your centerpieces are complete and you can sit back and enjoy the compliments!