Our friends Karen and Mike put their heart and soul into this AWESOME mad scientist birthday party for their son Aaron. My Savannah had a blast! (No pun intended.)
This is the sign decorating the front entrance, and I guess it helps when you’re related to a professional illustrator. (If you’ve ever visited the Pentagon in DC, you’ve probably seen his work.)
The festivities kicked off with each child receiving his/her own personalized lab coat.
It wouldn’t be a mad scientist party without some homemade flubber- many of them just called it goo or slime, or in one little girl’s case, making brownies, because she used every color of food coloring. Ech!
You (birthday boy) start with 1/2 cup of Elmer’s glue
And add water, then food coloring, and finally borox to get it really gooey. I forget the exact measurements, but the recipe is easily googled.
This is where the kids had to abandon their spoons and get messy. Squeezing out the extra water is important.
And the end result is some fabulous albeit messy flubber! I don’t envy the dishes Karen had to do after this one.
The next fun experiment was alka seltzer rockets! Woot! The kids used what looked like 35mm film canisters, but they were white plastic and the lids didn’t go on quite as tight. I’m guessing that’s key.
Basically, you fill it just less than halfway with water, drop in half or a whole tablet of alka seltzer, replace the lid,
stand it on the ground- lid down, and get out of the way.
This all has to be done pretty quickly because you only have about 2-8 seconds before….LIFT OFF!
By then the kids were ready for snacks, and oh my! Check out this party table!
Eyeball cupcakes, beakers full of who knows what, worms, drinking cups that are actually beakers with eyeballs in the bottom, and where the HECK do you get dry ice?
All the kids wanted to touch the “smoke” from the dry ice, obviously. I highly recommend the strawberry/apple/banana/sugar and cinnamon salsa with cinnamon pita chips. Mmm-hmm!
And just when we thought the party was over, there’s more! Homemade lava lamps!
We all saw what the alka seltzer did in water, but would it bubble in vegetable oil? Good question…
This was another easy experiment that still guaranteed to blow your mind. Fill an empty water bottle 3/4 full with vegetable oil. Top it off with water. Drop in 10 drops of your favorite color food coloring, and add an alka seltzer. Voila! Insta-hippie!
This party is definitely going down as one of my favorites. Good job, Karen and Mike!
This is the sign decorating the front entrance, and I guess it helps when you’re related to a professional illustrator. (If you’ve ever visited the Pentagon in DC, you’ve probably seen his work.)
The festivities kicked off with each child receiving his/her own personalized lab coat.
It wouldn’t be a mad scientist party without some homemade flubber- many of them just called it goo or slime, or in one little girl’s case, making brownies, because she used every color of food coloring. Ech!
You (birthday boy) start with 1/2 cup of Elmer’s glue
And add water, then food coloring, and finally borox to get it really gooey. I forget the exact measurements, but the recipe is easily googled.
This is where the kids had to abandon their spoons and get messy. Squeezing out the extra water is important.
And the end result is some fabulous albeit messy flubber! I don’t envy the dishes Karen had to do after this one.
The next fun experiment was alka seltzer rockets! Woot! The kids used what looked like 35mm film canisters, but they were white plastic and the lids didn’t go on quite as tight. I’m guessing that’s key.
Basically, you fill it just less than halfway with water, drop in half or a whole tablet of alka seltzer, replace the lid,
stand it on the ground- lid down, and get out of the way.
This all has to be done pretty quickly because you only have about 2-8 seconds before….LIFT OFF!
By then the kids were ready for snacks, and oh my! Check out this party table!
Eyeball cupcakes, beakers full of who knows what, worms, drinking cups that are actually beakers with eyeballs in the bottom, and where the HECK do you get dry ice?
All the kids wanted to touch the “smoke” from the dry ice, obviously. I highly recommend the strawberry/apple/banana/sugar and cinnamon salsa with cinnamon pita chips. Mmm-hmm!
And just when we thought the party was over, there’s more! Homemade lava lamps!
We all saw what the alka seltzer did in water, but would it bubble in vegetable oil? Good question…
This was another easy experiment that still guaranteed to blow your mind. Fill an empty water bottle 3/4 full with vegetable oil. Top it off with water. Drop in 10 drops of your favorite color food coloring, and add an alka seltzer. Voila! Insta-hippie!
This party is definitely going down as one of my favorites. Good job, Karen and Mike!
