Mad Science Goody Bags

I have all of the Mad Science party pictures saved on disk & I can't get the disk to open! So, here is my one lonely picture of the goody bags.

The red biohazard bags held the following goodies:

• gummy worm
• gummy body parts
• eyeball ring
• pop rocks
• candy specimen slide
• powdered candy test tube
• slime & bug test tube
• stink bag (very boy appropriate - you squeeze the bag to cause a chemical reaction which causes the pouch to expand, pop & emit a stinky sulfur smell!)
• poison sticker
• 2 Alka-Seltzer tablet packs (to do more party experiments at home)
• an experiment manual of all the experiments we did at the party

The cost of all of this was minimal (you know me, I'm all about the bargain!). All of the candy & slime test tube was purchased after Halloween on clearance. Just make sure to check the expiration dates on all perishables you are saving for a future party. I was able to print the manuals at my husband's office, the Alka-Seltzer was free with coupons and the biohazard bags were free from my grandmother's nursing home. Each goody bag cost me less than $1.00 to put together!

I hope to have the actual party pictures up this weekend!

Lisa from Personally You Parties gave me this great award - thanks Lisa! I am always so flattered when someone thinks my blog is worthy of an award!

I am passing this award to My Insanity, Sweet Mady's Paper and Most Likely Late - these are all party blogs I enjoy reading!

Experiment Fun

I've planned lots of fun experiments for Nathan's Mad Scientist Party and today I've been trying them all out to make sure they are do-able and that I have the ratios correct. This experiment is so cool - even the grown ups were ohhing & ahhing!
This white cloud is actually a bar of Ivory soap that was nuked in the microwave on High for 2 minutes! You can read about how & why it works here.

When Good Cakes Go Bad

I recently ran across the funniest blog & had to share it with you. It is called Cake Wrecks and its motto is "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong."

Here is just a tease of some of the lovely cakes you will see:

A green Super Bowl cake! Just cut the Roman Numerals off last year's cake topper, slap on frosting numbers & you're good to go!
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Awww! A Darth Vader baby cake. Look - it's a girl!

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This last one might actually be for a very large person & not a misspelling, but I'm just speculating.
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Visiting Cake Wrecks promises lots of laughter & fun! The commentary is just as funny as the cake pictures!

Beautiful Banners

Lorie from Be Different...Act Normal is offering an awesome giveaway. You can enter to win one of the many beautiful banners made by emmi cakes. Hurry over to Lorie's blog...you only have until February 12th to enter!

Thank You, Amy!

I just wanted shout out a great big "Thank You" to Amy over at Living Locurto. She created these great "Open With Caution" tags & invitations and then shared them with everyone!
I printed the caution tags (can also be made into stickers) at Office Depot on glossy paper and used them to seal my Mad Scientist party invitation envelopes!

Here are Amy's links if you want to print them up for yourself:

Open With Caution and Science Party Invitations

Amy is such a talented graphic artist and always has wonderful freebies to download on her blog. You should definitely check it out!

Mad Scientist Invitations Part 2

I showed the front of the Mad Science party invitations here & below is a picture of the inside:

Inside the invitation reads:

Come for Cool Chemical Reactions, Wacky Experiments & Explosive Fun!

Testing Begins: Saturday, Feb 21st At 5pm

Lab Location: our address

Lab Director: Brenda xxx-xxx Please RSVP

*The Lab Cafeteria will be serving dinner
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The notecards are pre-made from Michaels. One of the things that bothers me about buying the pre-made notecards is that they are white on the inside. I'm sure no one will notice & it is a non-issue - it is just my little pet peeve! The price for pre-made notecards just can't be beat. They were $4.99 for a package of 20 blank notecards & envelopes and I used a 50% off coupon from the Sunday Michaels sales flyer. So, only $2.67 with tax - what a bargain!

The mad scientist picture was found online & I had them printed at Office Depot on glossy photo paper - that runs about 60¢ a sheet and I fit 3 pictures on each page. All of the colored cardstock came from Joanns when they were running a scrapbook paper sale 6/96¢. The cost of the invitations was minimal, but they were time consuming to make. I love how they turned out and I enjoy papercrafting, so the time spent making is well worth it.

Science Party Invitation

I finally finished the invitations for Nathan's Mad Science Birthday party. It took me awhile to come up with the invitations. I knew I wanted something bright and interactive, but just couldn't come up with a concept that I was happy with. Then I remembered shakers that I used to make for scrapbooking.

You can find lots of online tutorials for shaker cards here. Basically, it is two pieces of cardstock & clear acetate sandwiched with foam tape. The interior of this shaker is filled with seed beads, but you can also use glitter, sequins or anything with a low profile. When you move the card, the beads slide around inside the test tube.

I used blank notecards & envelopes from Michaels. The wavy orange border was made with the Creative Memories 12" Decorative Trimmer & the bubbles are clear epoxy stickers made by EK Success (from Joanns).

I have planned lots of fun experiments, food & an "Invent Your Own Sundae" bar loaded with lots of yummy toppings.

You can see inside the invitation here.

More Madness!

Last week I posted on my everyday blog the difficulty I've had in finding disposable lab coats for Natha's upcoming Mad Scientist Party. I really want all of the boys to have their own lab coat to wear during the party & take home.

To keep costs down, I thought disposable lab coats were the way to go. Unfortunately, I couldn't find them locally & only found one store online that sold them individually (most places only sell them as a case of 30 & I only need 10) and that store wanted to charge almost $26 for shipping!

Hoping to find new listings, I checked Ebay everyday and found these coats:

I was going to pass because I had it in my head that the coats needed to be white. Nathan saw these & thought they were the coolest ever, so blue it is! I was able to get 10 coats + shipping for $17, a price I was very happy with & had in the budget.


I also got these gallon-sized biohazard bags to use as goody bags. These were free from my grandmother's nursing home. I just love them! Yes, I am a party planning nerd!