Let Them Eat BRAINS...
Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 8:13PM 
For Lucas' 6th birthday he was given a choice between a weekend at Disneyland, go-kart racing with 5 friends, lazer tag for 10 friends, or a mad scientist party where he could invite everyone. Guess which one he chose?
This may be one of the last years we do this. I rely on my yard to host 30 sugar crazed 6 year olds, and with the threat of rain, it was pretty stressful. In the end the rain held off until after the party ended and the kids had a wonderful time. But there for awhile I was really nervous.
Lucas declared about 2 weeks before that he wanted a brain cake. {Yes, he IS my child} So I set forth to figure this one out. My sister-in-law Heather, who is queen of the cute cakes turned me onto Coolest Birthday Cakes.com for inspiration. And low and behold, there was a brain cake. I pretty much copied it exactly - thrilled that someone else had gone through the trouble of figuring out how to make Jell-O opaque and gray.
In addition to the brain cake, I decided this year to make the favors and other decorations by using chocolate molds. I was surprised at how easy they were to make and the kids loved the chocolate brains.
Feeling a bit cocky after making brain chocolate candies, I moved on to another idea I saw on Hostess with the Mostess - chocolate dipped marshmallow pops. These were super simple to make (marshmallows, lollipop sticks, melted chocolate and sprinkles) and were a huge WOW with the kids as their eyes lit up like a christmas tress when I passed them out.
The periodic table signs and banners were an extremely creative package I got off Etsy and while I had to replace my printer ink 2x in one week, I was really happy with how they turned out.
I also found Steve Spanger's Science Website and ordered some fun table decor such as beakers, test tubes, polymar water cubes and atomic glow goo. I ended up using the black light and the glow goo by the "adult drink" section.. and yes, we offer beer and wine at kids parties. How else do you expect a parent to get through 30+ hyper kids yelling for 2 hours?
Upon arrival, all of the kids got a "lab coat" (L men's white under-shirt cut up the front) and scientist glasses (from Oriental Trading Company), which while adorable on little Austin, was probably something I wouldn't recommend doing. The kids liked it for about 5 minutes, and it was a cute quick "thing" to do when they first got here. But the moment the science show was over all the white t-shirts were thrown in a pile and left in the (eventual) rain. I felt horribly wasteful throwing away $50 worth of t-shirts that were worn for an hour at most.
But hey, it looked cute.
And last but not least, we brought in "Radical Rob" the Science Guy from Mad Scientists San Diego who was AMAZING. The kids were all riveted by his face-melting, smoke making, rocket launching science show and are apparently all still talking about it.
Reader Comments (8)
damn... i would have enjoyed that birthday party!!! You are so creative girl.
As always very impressive!
Dude, this so wins over a bounce house.
You done good, mom.
Your party turned out SO cute! Kudos to you for figuring out the brain cake - not to mention all of the other decorations! I'm glad the rain held off for a little while and that all the kids had such a good time. It was so nice to work with you!
Thanks! :)
Ridiculously creative! I'm not the brain cake kind so I'm sort of praying that neither of my kids want to do the mad science thing. But if they do, I now know where to turn!
Wow... I loved theme Lucus chose and then to see you execute with such creativity! Very impressive and super inspiring! My daughters turning 8 this summer, I'll be in touch!
You are so AWESOMELY creative! What a great party!! Love the brain cake -- great for Halloween too!