Noah's {Mad Science Themed} 6th Birthday Party

I'm pretty sure this is the quickest I have managed to post about a birthday party!! I'm so excited to share this one though - it was so fun!! When I asked Noah what he wanted for his birthday party theme for his 6th birthday, he told me he wanted a mad science party. The inner geek in me squealed with delight!!  Away I went planning an adorable mad science party for my little guy. I tend to go "all out" for Noah's parties. I think this is because 1) they are in the summer, so I have more time to plan and execute, and 2) having a summer birthday myself, I know what a bummer it is to not be able to celebrate at school like most kids do. So, all out I went! ;)

First on the agenda, the invitations. We needed to pass these out before school let out in May! I actually found inspiration from some party balloons and test tubes that I found on Etsy, from NerdyWordsGifts. Noah picked three colors he wanted for the balloons (aqua, blue and red), and I based the rest of the party design on the design printed on those! I also couldn't resist a few of the "Helium" balloons that she offered as well. Too cute! I ran with the element theme for the letters and used these for multiple aspects of the party. Since we were handing out the invites at school, I made labels of each child's name like I did Noah's on the invite. So fun!!  I had the invites printed at my local Office Depot store. They have a nice thicker cardstock that looks great printed on their laser printer. I also printed "Come have a BLAST!" labels to seal the envelopes on Avery's 2" glossy round labels. Those print beautifully right at home!

After the invitations were delivered, I started brainstorming (aka, browsing Pinterest and Google) ideas for the party. I made a custom banner that read "Happy 6th Birthday Noah" using the same element letters.

Here's an example of the banner letters, close-up. Each letter was an element, except for a couple letters that I combined because it worked out ("Ir" and "Th"). I used tiny clothespins to hang the letters on jute rope.

My friend, Sarah, made Noah's birthday T-shirt. It was perfect! Check out her shop on Etsy - All in Good Font!

For the dinner menu, we chose:

• A HOT DOG bar, where guests could create their own style of dog:
• All American Dog (ketchup + mustard)
• BBQ Dog (BBQ sauce + peppers)
• Chili Dog (chili + cheese)
• Fiesta Dog (salsa + cheese)
• New York Dog (spicy brown mustard + sauerkraut)
• Surf Dog (pineapple salsa + teriyaki sauce)
• DNA pasta (homemade white cheddar mac 'n cheese using rotini pasta noodles)
• Fruit molecules (grapes + berries)
• Petri dishes (strawberry Jell-O with "bacteria" sprinkles)
• A BEVERAGE lab, where guests could mix their own creations:
• Cranberry juice
• Blue Hawaiian punch
• Lemonade
• Pineapple juice
• Sprite
• Bottles of H2O
• An ICE CREAM SUNDAE bar, where guests could choose their own toppings:
• Salted caramel
• Hot fudge
• Maraschino cherries
• Peanuts
• Sprinkles
• Strawberry syrup

I used mason jars for the beverage lab and added kraft paper straws with some cute, personalized straw flags to complete the look. This is a great way to "label" drinks when you have 15 kids at a party and don't want to mix everyone's drinks up!! ;) I love Avery's water bottle labels. They print beautifully and don't smudge as the bottles sweat! What better way to label water than by using it's chemical name? ;) The kids had a blast using funnels to fill their jars with their own drink concoctions!

After everyone filled up, we moved on to the experiments. I browsed through a couple kids' science books (365 Awesome Science Experiments and Pop Bottle Science) and picked 6 experiments that I thought would be fairly easy and fun for 5/6-year-olds to do:

• Drop It: will a full bottle fall twice as fast as a half-full bottle?
• Metal Boat: can you make a metal boat float?
• Acid or Base?: make colors change as if by magic!
• Gas Balloon: an acid and a base make gas
• Corny Goo: make a goo with strange habits
• Squishy Ice Cream: make your own ice cream!

I created my own science lab notebook that included detailed instructions for the experiments we were conducting. Each child received one of these. For Noah's party with friends, I had the kids pair up and work together, making 7 groups. Each group had a pan full of the supplies they would need to conduct the experiments.

I think it went pretty well, aside from most of the parents having to complete the ice cream experiment for the kids by the end of it. ;) In their defense, they were distracted by the large amount of ducks in our backyard, and they were all more interested in feeding them at that point. Haha!

Noah requested a Reese cake this year for his party, so to tie in to the theme, we made it "explode" with Reese's pieces when you cut into the cake! I made a cake topper to put in the top.

I also ordered these adorable cookies from my friend, Amanda, of Sweet Hadley B Cookies. She is the best!!!

For the party favors, I bought plain white paper bags at Michaels and assigned an element that represented each child attending (i.e. Ra = Radium = Rachel, Am = Americum = Amos, Lu = Lutetium = Lucas, etc). I made a personalized ID badge for each child to wear, using these badge holders and lanyards. Each child also received a pair of safety glasses for the experiments, the notebook with instructions for the 6 experiments we conducted at the party, a pen, another Science notebook (from the Target dollar spot!), an atomic bouncy ball, and a test tube full of sixlets candy.

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his parties!! :) 

The final item to take care of was the thank you notes. I made a simple flat 4" x 6" card to go with the theme. Because who doesn't love getting something sweet in the mail instead of bills? ;) 

It was an adorable, FUN party! Happy 6th Birthday to our little middle!

If you're interested in purchasing any of the Mad Science printables, please visit my website at www.seeleylanedesign.com, or contact me via my Etsy shop. Don't forget to check out Sweet Hadley B Cookies (she ships cookies all over the U.S.) and custom vinyl t-shirts by All in Good Font!

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Amos's {Burlap and Bowties} 1st Birthday Party

Wow. So, looking back through my posts, I see that I never posted about Amos's 1st birthday party!! #thirdbabyproblems  In my defense, it all went down not long before Josh left to work in VA, leaving me with the 3 boys by myself during the week for the next 4.5 months. I don't miss that! I guess I should probably post about this one before I post about his 3rd birthday...it appears I had most of it ready to go, so I'll fill in the blanks now! :)

Now that I've updated you about Amos's 1st year, it's time to talk about the party!! On my 3rd boy now, I decided it was time to finally do a "little man" bash. So, away I went planning an adorable navy blue, aqua, and lime green "little man"/bowtie-themed party for my little guy. I decided to incorporate burlap to the theme, too, for a "burlap and bowties" party. First on the agenda, the invitations.

I love including photos of the birthday boy on the invites, and I thought it might be fun to make this a 3-D invite, so I added the bowties (made from lime green grosgrain ribbon) with hot glue. :) I also decided to mount the invites on pieces of burlap, to complete the 3-D effect. I was very happy with how they turned out!

After the invitations were mailed, I started brainstorming ideas for the party. To decorate the house, I bought some navy blue, aqua and lime green latex balloons (inflated with helium and hi-float) at the local party supply store. I also bought a 1st birthday balloon and lucked out that the colors coordinated fairly well! I made a custom banner that read "Happy 1st Birthday Amos" using the same bowtie/color theme. I used aqua baker's twine to string together the pendants and made the bowties from burlap. It worked well and looked great! I also made a coordinating banner for his highchair that read "I am 1".

From the mantle, I hung a string of pictures from Amos's first year - the monthly pics I took throughout the year. I decorated this banner with more bowties and put it on a burlap background. I also framed the print I made summarizing his first year.

For the party favors, I bought little burlap bags (from Michaels) and added personalized tags to them. Inside the bags, I added little bags of bright blue, aqua and kelly green chocolate candies (from Fresh Market). I also made clip-on bowties for the boys and bow barrettes for the girls, and added these to the bags. To help decorate the room, I set the bags on our bookshelves and tied a balloon to each one.

This year, I made cake bites for the party guests and a small smash cake for Amos. I used aqua blue candy melts for the vanilla cake bites. I purchased the lime green cupcake liners, to hold the cake bites, from our local party store. All of the plates, bowls, napkins and utensils were purchased at our local party store. I wrapped the utensils in a napkin, then taped a piece of ribbon around the middle to make them look like bowties. For the tables, I used dark blue plastic tablecloths, then draped pieces of burlap on top as table runners. I placed more of the colored chocolate candies in candle holders to make for a colorful centerpiece.

For the dinner menu, I chose:

• Burger Bites (beef patty sliders on Hawaiian sweet rolls)
• 'Lil Smokies ('Lil Smokies cooked in Montgomery Inn BBQ sauce)
• Sweet Tator Tots (homemade roasted sweet potatoes cubes)
• Caprese Skewer Bites (cherry tomatoes, mozzarella pearls and basil)
• Bowtie Pasta Salad (bowtie pasta, Italian dressing, mini pepperoni, roasted red bell peppers, shredded parmesan)
• Bowtie Pasta Crunchies (fried bowtie pasta with roasted red pepper hummus)
• Mini Fruit Pizzas (mixed berries and homemade whipped cream in deep dish sugar cookie)
• Baby Carrots (served with ranch dressing)

I wanted the food to go with the party theme, which is why I chose the "little" items for our little man. :) Thanks to my sister for helping me get all of the food ready, as usual! We also had homemade vanilla ice cream (courtesy of my dad!) to go with the cake bites. Yum!

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his day!! :) I sewed the suspenders and bowtie to his plain white onesie for his party outfit. He also wore it for the one-year pics that we had done.

The final item to take care of was the thank you notes. I added one of the professional pics to a simple thank you note matching the theme. Plenty of room for a sweet thank you for friends and family!

It was an adorable, fun party for my tiniest little man!

Happy 1st Birthday, Amos!

All items you see above are available for customization and purchase. Please contact me via my Etsy shop.

Ethan's {Lego Star Wars Themed} 7th Birthday Party

I'm starting to fall behind here, but figured what better day than "May the Fourth be with You" Day to share about Ethan's Star Wars Lego themed birthday parties this year! I haven't updated you about Ethan's 7th year yet either (hopefully I will soon!), but here are the details (finally) from his parties 2 months ago. Better late than never, right??

He had a Lego Movie theme last year, and Star Wars the year before that, so I guess this was a good mix of the two. ;) Definitely two of his most favorite things anyway! First on the agenda, the invitations. Ethan ended up having three different parties (and I wonder why my boys are spoiled?!?) this year, so I had to make several versions of the invite. The first party was with his classmates from school. We had it at a local bowling alley/laser tag venue. The kids loved it and it was super easy for me! I just showed up with cupcakes and favors and that was it. The kids ate pizza, bowled for awhile, played arcade games, then played a game of laser tag. Tons of fun.

His next party was at our house with my family. My niece, Hannah, had just turned 4 a couple weeks before Ethan's birthday, so we had a fun combined party for the two of them. Luckily, they both love Star Wars and legos, so it made for a fun dark side/light side theme. :) I just printed on both sides of the invite. And yes, as you can see, I have entirely too much fun putting the kids' faces on invites (like I did with Noah and the firetruck a couple years ago). Haha! I used their favorite characters and made them each into tiny legos as well. His final party was with Josh's parents the following weekend. We were all partied out by mid-March, and still recovering a bit now. ;)

To decorate the house,  I made a custom banner that read "Happy 7th Birthday Ethan" using the same theme from the invites. Ethan and I worked together to create the banner, selecting characters for each letter - i.e., Han Solo for H, Admiral Ackbar for A, etc. You can see all the characters below. I strung the pendants together with black yarn and used black glittery cardstock for the spacers. It worked well and looked great! For Hannah, I made one that said "Hannah is 4!" :)

For the party favors, I lucked out and found huge bubble wands that were red and blue light sabers at the dollar spot at Target. Perfect! I made little tags to tie to the handles. Amos was a big fan of those, so I'll let him model them. ;)

This year, I made simple cupcakes for his party with friends. Half had black wrappers and half had silver. The frosting was decorated with edible spray-on color in silver or black. For his party with my family, I made death star cake pops. I hadn't made cake pops in a looooong time, and they are something I still need to work on. :/ They still tasted great though, so no one seemed to mind their lumpiness. :)

The following week, I went back to cupcakes. I had finally received some molds I ordered, so I used candy melts to make Darth Vader and stormtrooper heads to decorate the cupcakes. Yay sugar!

I made light sabers out of the napkins, forks and spoons again. I had done this for his other Star Wars party as well. I found cute Star Wars plates (simple black with silver writing) at Target, as well as the coordinating tablecloth. Unfortunately, most of the pictures I took didn't turn out great because we had just purchased our new camera and I was apparently having focusing issues. Sigh. 

I love a good pun, so for the dinner menu, Ethan and I chose:

• Pizza the HUTT (Jabba the Hutt)
• CHEWIE'S cheese pizza (Chewbacca)
• SITH 'shroom pizza (a sith)
• HAN'S Hawaiian pizza (Han Solo)
• VADER'S veggie pizza (Darth Vader)
• BOBA-que chips (Boba Fett)
• PRINCESS Lays (Princess Leia)
• FALCON fruit (Millenium falcon)
• g-REY-pe sabers (Rey)
• DROIDIKA dip (a droidika)
• DEATH STAR cake pops (the death star)
• JAR JAR drinks (Jar Jar Binks) - drinks were served in mason jars
• Milk in a JAR JAR
• JANGO mango juice (Jango Fett)
• LUKE skywater (Luke Skywalker)

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his THREE parties!! :)

The final item to take care of was the thank you notes. I made a simple flat 4" x 6" card for his friends and added his pic with the present since he opened them at home instead of at his party. :)

Happy 7th Birthday to our biggest little man!

All items you see above are available for customization and purchase through my Etsy shop. You can also visit my website, or find me on Facebook.

Amos's Nautical Themed 2nd Birthday Party

Now that I've updated you about Amos's 2nd year, it's time to talk about the party!! Having a pool at our new house, I thought it might be fun to throw a nautical-themed pool party, so that's what we did for Amos's 2nd birthday earlier this month. I decided to go with classic shades of blue and red for the colors. First on the agenda, the invitations.

I also like to add a little something to the invites to make them unique. This time, I used Amos's favorite - Lifesaver mints! Yes, he loves these things! They were the perfect touch to add to his invites. I also created coordinating 2" round stickers to seal the envelopes when I mailed the invites.

After the invitations were mailed, I started brainstorming ideas for the party. To decorate the house, I bought some light blue, navy and red latex balloons at the local grocery store. I made a custom banner that read "Happy 2nd Birthday Amos!" using the same nautical/color theme.

Here's an example of the banner letters, close-up. I threaded jute rope through the pendant pieces to hang it. It worked well and looked great! I also made a "Welcome Aboard" sign for the front door to greet guests as they arrived.

For the party favors, I made little bags of goldfish crackers labeled as Amos's Catch of the Day. I also made personalized sailor hats for each of the little party guests. I ordered these from Amazon, then stapled on the name tags I made. Unfortunately, the hats didn't look as nice in person as they did online, but they served their purpose. I also bought the fun fishing net on Amazon as well. It was the perfect size for covering our entire table! After reading reviews on some of the other nets I found on Amazon, I decided to go with this one to be sure it would be big enough. I'm glad I did - it was perfect!

Amos shared his party with my side of the family this year with his cousin, Jacob, who turned 8 a couple weeks before he turned 2. :)

I made cupcakes for the party instead of cake. What better way to decorate than to turn the cupcakes into little sailboats!

I stuck these toppers in some delicious caramel cupcakes. These cupcakes definitely deserve a post of their own. Topped with a "sea" salted caramel frosting, they are my new favorite. You can find the recipe, from Sally's Baking Addiction, here. They are simply amazing, and super easy, too! Be sure you let the frosting cool longer than I did. ;) I waited 15 minutes like the recipe said, but it was still really warm, so you can see that the piping didn't hold up very well. The next weekend I made them, it worked much better giving it longer to cool first. :) You also don't want to wait too long though, because the frosting will stiffen and become hard to pipe/spread if it gets too cool.

I bought red napkins and used jute to secure the utensils in the napkins. I added another mint here, perfect for each guest to enjoy after dinner. They looked super cute in the anchor bucket that I scored from the dollar section at Target! ;) I also bought the red and white striped plates and navy plates at Target. They were perfect for the theme! An additional jar of mints was the perfect touch to the display.

I bought red and white striped paper straws on Amazon, and added some cute navy AHOY! straw flags to complete the look. These adorable mason jars (with lids that had cutouts for straws) were on sale at Target, so I couldn't pass them up. No more buying disposable cups for parties - I can re-use these for years to come. And decorate them to go with the theme, of course! ;)

I think these may have been my favorite part.

It was surprisingly difficult to find nautical-themed food ideas online! Fish-themed items were more common, but I wanted to try and keep it more nautical, if I could. I finally resorted to scouring a nautical glossary for ideas. So, no, "cog" and "helm" didn't just pop in my head. ;) For the dinner menu, I finally decided on the following:

• WATER-melon: seedless watermelon wedges
• Caprese SCHOONERS (skewers): grape tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella and balsamic glaze
• BATTLEships (chips) & CRAB dip: Maryland crab dip and pita chips
• Corn on the COG (cob): oven-roasted corn on the cob
• HELM (ham) sandwiches: toasted ham and Dijon mustard on Hawaiian sweet rolls
• ANCHORS away parfaits: layered cornbread, shredded BBQ pork, and coleslaw
• SEA-salted caramel cupcakes: caramel cupcakes with salted caramel frosting
• Chocolate chips AHOY!: cookies
• 'Lil SAILOR'S punch: cran-pomegranate juice with Sprite, frozen blueberries

I love creating themed party food items. Seriously. It's so fun! It was a yummy spread, too!

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his parties!! :) I bought him a cute navy and red striped shirt from Target (surprise! haha!) clearance to look cute with the theme.

The final item to take care of was the thank you notes. I made a simple flat 4" x 6" card with a picture of the birthday boy.

Because who doesn't love getting something sweet in the mail instead of bills? ;) We had a couple adorable, fun parties for our water-loving tiny man!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our tiniest little guy!

All items you see above are available for customization and purchase through my business page, kreations by kristy. You can also find me on Facebook and Etsy.