Carnival Tent Display

Three elementary schools, one from the city of Huntsville, one from the city of Madison, and one from Madison County teamed up with The United Way to hold summer reading carnivals this past week. I signed up to volunteer at the public library's table at the county school, and I also volunteered to create a display for the story time area.

I went straight to Pinterest for ideas, and I created quite a Pinterest board dedicated to all things carnival. I can't wait to throw Luke a carnival-inspired birthday party! This backdrop from a wedding was my main inspiration:

This image and other pictures from the wedding can be found on the  Style Me Pretty blog.

I said I would never make these paper fans again after making them for a bridal shower this spring, but I gave in and made them anyway.  I used needle and thread to hold them together last time, but this time I used a hot glue gun, which made the work a lot easier and quicker.  I don't know which caused me more injuries, though--the needle or the hot glue. I am dangerous with both.  There are many tutorials out there on making these fans. Here is one from Crafty After All.

I had an old copy of Heidi that was a hand-me-down given to me when I was young.  It was falling apart, so I decided since this was a summer reading carnival, using pages from a children's book seemed appropriate.

I had plain red printer paper to use, and the other papers are digital scrapbook papers that I printed from my computer.

The draping of the display, which was not perfect and drove me crazy, was done with plastic tablecloths from the dollar store.  I cut each tablecloth in half lengthwise, and then I folded the cut halves in half lengthwise so there would not be as much transparency.  The wind was against me the day of the installation, and I was completely by myself setting it up.  With that said, I guess I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

I was very impressed with the tape I used to attach the display to the brick.  I will purchase Scotch Tough Duct Tape again for similar projects.  It held the display securely all day on brick in full sun, and it came off easily and did not leave residue.

The font I used for the "READ" sign is a free font aptly called Carnival and available from Dafont.

Here is a list of the scrapbook papers I used for my fans:

The solid blue paper (with great texture, I must add) is from the Sending You a Papyrus kit from Scrapyrus Designs.

The red and white chevron paper is from the Shining on Me kit from AH Designs.

The yellow polka dot paper is from Mommyish, and was part of a Pixels and Company Collaboration titled More or Less.

The blue polka dot paper was created by Captivated Visions for the Everyone Has a Story Kit.