So, your little prince or princess has a birthday coming up. Congratulations to you on making it to this milestone, and happy, happy to your little pumpkin. What's that? Oh. I see. You're lost in the Internet vortex of party places begging for your money and your child's attention with bright colors and annoying music on their websites? Well, take heart, fellow mommy. I've been there, and can show you a different way. It will require more work on your part -- I know, like you don't have enough to do already -- but it'll be worth it when every kid in the neighborhood is still talking about your little snugglebug's birthday funfest several days later.
Come in. Have a seat. Let me grab you a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and I'll tell you how we managed to throw a mad science party my birthday girl dubbed "awesome" for her and 22 of her friends -- in our house.
The idea
My daughter just turned 8, and she started off not knowing if she wanted an American Girl party or a mad science party. Since almost half of her little friends are boys (see the tree-climbing story here), I suggested that if she wanted the boys to come, dolls were probably not the way to go. Just thinking out loud. She agreed, and we settled on mad science.
The invitations
This was the easiest part of the whole thing. In years past, I've ordered pricey custom invites for the children's birthdays and then spent more money on postage. For this party, because of timing constraints, I sent an Evite two weeks beforehand. I told her she could pick 20 children to invite, thinking that conventional wisdom says half will show up. She brought me 23 names.
I got one "no." Let the fun begin.
The cake
The birthday cake is the centerpiece for any at-home birthday party, in my humble opinion. I wanted this one to be amazing, and figured I had some money to play with since we were doing the party at home.
I called the best bakery in Richmond and described what I wanted to the girl who answered the phone. She said it would be about $50. I agreed, and she then asked me to find a photo of what I wanted the cake to look like and email it to her. I obliged. The next day I got an email that said what I'd sent them was "very labor-intensive" and would be $850 plus tax. I called the baker and thanked her, but told her my 8-year-old did not need a wedding cake for her birthday party.
The truth is, I know how to decorate cakes. My mom took all the classes, and she taught me how to do it several years ago. Until she passed away last spring, she or we or I made all of the children's birthday cakes. I have not done one since. But for $850, I sent my doting husband to the storage unit where he took all of her things that I still cannot bear to look at, and asked him to bring me her cake decorating tools. I settled with the baker on this: you do the time-consuming baking, filling and frosting of the cake (for $50), and I will do the fun decorating of it.
After one tiny meltdown on Saturday morning when I came downstairs and actually saw mom's cake box on my counter and burst into tears, I had a lot of fun decorating my little "Dr. Averenstein's" birthday masterpiece -- and it made it feel like a bit of my mom was there with me, helping me remember to take my time and do it right. My daughter and her friends were thrilled with the finished product. The flask and rocket are Rice Krispies treats that have been frosted and decorated, and the "label" on the front is fondant that I wrote on with edible markers ($8 a box at Micheal's). The "explosion" coming out of the flask is skittles strung on florist's wire.
The snacks
This part was fun. I ordered pre-sterilized petri dishes from amazon, and filled them with green Jello and gummy worms, then labeled them "Slime: eat at own risk" and put them on the far end of the table. The cheese balls were "eye of newt," the chocolate chip cookies "super energy sugar circles," the grape Kool-Aid "Dr. Averenstein's purple potion." The children loved it.
The favor bags
I used mailing labels to decorate colored gift bags ($8 for 13, also at Micheal's) and made "Mad Scientist Starter Kits" for each child. Also on the table were the radioactive hazardous materials (also known as glow bracelets), test tubes full of Mad Science 8x (8th birthday) brain power (also known as skittles and M&Ms), and pop rocks with magnifying glasses. I labeled the pop rocks with the story of how they work the way they do, and told the children they could look at the candy with their magnifying glasses to see the bubbles they feel when they put it on their tongues.
The experiments
This is where the fun really came in for our young guests. It helps that my husband is Mr. Wizard, but that wasn't enough. No, party mommy, you must have friends who love you enough to do you one whopper of a favor to pull this off with so many children. After my hubby did several rounds of firing the compressed air rocket he and the children built last summer while the guests arrived, we welcomed our budding scientists to Dr. Frankenstein's Mad Science Academy and presented them with their starter kits, telling them they'd collect things as they moved through their classes that would go into the kits.
We split them into four groups and started rotating them through stations. In the garage, they had controlling the elements class and made electromagnets and used baking soda and vinegar to blow up balloons attahed to the tops of water bottles. The electromagnets went into their bags. In the kitchen, they made "Dr. Frankenstein's Reanimation Ooze," and put it in a jar (10 for $1 at Dollar Tree) and added it to their bag. In the sunroom, they learned to control the weather by making tornadoes in bottles (teacher store, $2.99) and in the family room, they had potions class with beakers full of colored water that they set bubbling with dry ice.
The demonstrations
After they were done with their "classes," the students returned to the garage to see some demonstrations about how salt helps water conduct electricity, and why molecules move differently in different temperature air.
The graduation party
Once they were done there, we brought everyone into the dining room for their "graduation banquet," sang happy birthday to our very special scientist, and served the refreshments, then filled their favor bags with the test tubes, pop rocks and glow sticks and sent them out to concoct mad science of their own -- with proper safety precautions, of course.
The result
I got many, many comments and thank yous from parents who said their child was thrilled and "did experiments all evening." One mommy friend said "my son has not stopped talking about it. He says he wants to be a scientist when he grows up now." Two of the other children called me three days later to thank me and tell me how amazing the party was, and how much more fun they had here than at the professional science party they'd attended in the past. When I went to school to have lunch with my daughter on Tuesday, it was still the talk of the second grade.
The cost breakdown
Evites: free
Cake: $50, plus another $20 in decorating ingredients and supplies
Labels: $12
Test tubes: $38
Petri dishes: $6
Glow sticks: $5
Jars: $3
Tornado tubes: $6
Beakers: $12
Glue: $8
Borax: $4
Bolts and wire: $15
Dry ice: $10
Other refreshments: $20
The bottom line
If you want to knock your little angel's socks off with a party they won't soon forget, this is the way to go, provided you have some Internet savvy and enough space. But it will consume a week of your spare time with party prep, and take three hours of your Saturday to pull off. When the last little scientist has gone home, you have my full permission to retire to the sofa with a glass of wine and pat yourself on the back for a mommy job well done.
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