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 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!! :)
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!
