Add a decorative and fun way to share your circus party snacks with this vintage circus snack booth – easy and cost effective. Read on for a step by step tutorial with pictures.
Also, If you’re looking for a few more ideas on the circus or carnival, please feel free to check out our other articles as well: Carnival Ideas!
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
THE SUPPLIES:
- A large box, preferably one that is a bit smaller in depth
- Twine (or yarn or ribbon, whatever you have hand)
- Clothespins (the ones we used are just under 2 inches but larger sizes should work too. You can get them at most craft stores but we’ve also added a link to Amazon).
- The Snacks 🙂
- Printouts for the Snacks. (Optional) For convenience, we’ve added an image with the labels we used on this tutorial to our Circus Printable Page, but there are other snack labels that you can also pick from. To add a few smiles, we added a cost in cents to each snack but did not at all charge for them. We just wanted to show that popcorn and snacks were just a few cents during Vintage circus times 🙂
THE TOOLS
- Tape
- Scissors
- Box Cutter – While you can use scissors, the box cutter does make the creation a bit quicker (especially if you’re shaping the box)
- Ruler (Optional)
STEPS
STEP 1: Shape the Box
Using your box cutter, trim off the top portions of the box. Place them to the side as you’ll need them to create the sign later.
You’ll be standing the box on one of the longer sides, so ensure the box can stand on its own. You can also use the two smaller flaps that you just cut out to make the box a bit more sturdy when upright.
Optionally trim the sides down with a box cutter if it looks too deep to you. We ordered quite a few vintage carnival items from Oriental Trading and so used their large, less deep box for this creation.
STEP 2: Cut the Twine
If you like, you can measure the twine with the ruler, but I generally just eyeball it. You will want the twine to be a bit longer than the width of the box as this will be used to hold the snacks. The number of twine pieces you will need depends on the size of the length of the box. Generally, I leave about 4 inches of space for each snack.
STEP 3: Add the Twine
Using the boxcutter, make a small cut on the open side of the box where you will set up the first row of snacks. You can then slide the twine into place. It should stay put if you’ve made a clean cut, but you can also secure the top and bottom of the twine with tape.
At roughly the same spot on the bottom of the box, make a second cut and thread the twine into there. Repeat for each row of snacks.
STEP 4: Add your Snacks
Using your clothespin, attach the snacks to the twine. Ideally, you want to have light snacks (chips, animal cracker packets, etc)… Anything too heavy and the bag will slip down to the bottom.
Side note: If any of you have seen our Vintage Circus Post, you’ll know that we had one row empty. We did plan to have a row for Cotton Candy (and had already created the sign with its label) but the candy didn’t come in on time. Now, we could have ripped the “Cotton Candy” label off in frustration or recreated the sign last minute, but instead we made lemonade out of lemons.. We crossed the label out then added a “Sorry, Sold Out!” note, which actually brought a few added chuckles to the party 🙂 Hey, it happens at stores, too, right? So, add that to the many examples that things don’t always go as you planned but sometimes they end up better 🙂
STEP 5: Create the Sign
Set the snack box / booth aside. For this portion, you will need the two longer length flaps that you cut up.
Attach the snack labels
Take one of the larger flaps. If you’re using the printouts, tape or glue the labels to the sign. You can also write on the sign itself and label the rows with whatever snacks you have.
Create Cuts for the Legs
At the bottom of the sign, make two small cuts about a fourth of the way in. This will be where the legs will be inserted.
Create the Legs for the Sign.
Grab one of the length-sized flaps that you just cut off from the top of the box. Optionally, trim the second flap so that you can re-use it to cover the top of portion of the box/booth. Then use the remaining top portion to create smaller rectangles that will be used as legs.
Using one of the smaller flaps that you cut off from the top width, Make two small rectangles. Using the box cutter, make a small cut in the middle of both rectangles. You’ll want the cut to go about half way.
Create the stand
Insert the cut-side of the small rectangle into the cut side of the larger sign. Do this with the other side as well. Your sign should be able to stand on its own now. (If you want the sign to stand closer to the front, you can trim down the smaller rectangles)
THE FINISHED PRODUCT!
Place the sign on top of the snack box / booth and you now have a Vintage Circus Snack Booth!
Optionally add some more snacks around it or sit it on top of a red/white tablecloth.
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so much for checking out our post on creating your own budget-friendly carnival snack booth! Hopefully this has helped and maybe even inspired more ideas!
If you’re looking for a few more ideas on the circus or carnival, please feel free to check out our other articles as well: Carnival Ideas and follow us on Pinterest!
