I Tri and Craft

thoughts from a mother of boys, a marathoner, a triathlete, a crafter, a wife, and a scientist


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Mad Scientist Birthday

This year my nieces turned 9!  With my sister, brother and I having science degrees it is only natural that my nieces also love science.

My sister has a biology degree, my brother and his wife are both engineers and I have a degree in chemistry.

My sister asked the girls what kind of party they wanted to have, and of course like typical nine-year olds they had no idea.  My sister talked them into having a Mad-Scientist Party and they loved the idea!

We made the invitations to look like fliers for a chemistry symposium.  I used a picture that I had photoshoped of them working in a lab.

(image coming soon)

We made all the decorations using some elements that I created myself and some from the kit Weird Science by Traci Reed.  I also made each kid their own I.D. badge.  The bar code was made using a website (which I forgot to bookmark) and the girls birth date.  Some of the inspiration for the decorations I found on this blog and also this one via Pinterest.

Food and decorations

My sister got Rock Candy, Warheads & Pop Rock candies, as well as crackers for snacks because the party was in between food times.  She made a partial periodic table out of cupcakes.  The kids were also super busy with the experiments, and didn’t eat much.

Food and drink

What lab party would be complete without bottles of H2O!

Gift Bags with items for experiments

My sister also made Jello-petri dishes with sprinkle bacteria.  She put together gift bags for the kids that had items they would need for the experiments.  We put hazard labels on the bags which separated the kids into groups.   The birthday girls are pictured below on the right.

Mad Scientist at Work!

The kids all got lab coats and goggles to perform the experiments, which my sister put together and purchased.

Mad Scientist at Work!

Some of the experiments were finger print lab, making snow, making lava lamps, and tie-dyeing socks.  We enlisted help from friends to run each lab experiments.

The grand finally!

And we ended it with dropping Mentos into Diet Cola.


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Happy Birthday Rock Star!

My little man finally turned 2! and what a big day it was.

He has always loved music, and we have always played it for him.  When he was little he would quite down for Rock ‘N Roll, reggae, classical or anything with a beat. When he started to be able to move, he would move with the music.  Then he began to dance, after that everything became a drum.  He LOVED to drum, and this year he got some drums for Christmas.

When trying to figure out a birthday theme we decided on a Rock Star theme.  In my previous post I uploaded what his invitations looked like.  They were made to look like a concert poster and came with two concert tickets.  I was very pleased with the results, and my work didn’t stop there.

I made the backstage passes for the people who came

Being as we are a family that lives off M&M candies, and it is one of Ian’s favorites.  We ordered some personalized ones from My M&M.  Which I am pretty sure we do for most every party.

I made the “Happy Birthday” and “Rock On” banners using the Sam Kit from Just So Scrappy, one of my favorite kit designers.

I was also able to make all the fun tags, using the same kit.

The gift bags and goodies I got from Oriental Trading Co and The Dollar Tree.

Some decorations, plates & napkins I found at Party City.  I also bought the pinata at Toys ‘R Us.

The FANTASTIC cake was made by my absolutely wonderful and talented aunt!  Ian was so excited for the cake, he loved it!

All in all it was a wonderful day and Ian had such a great time.

 

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Photoshop vs Lightroom

I love them both, but I am just learning about Lightroom.  It is nice to have a reference about them.

 

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via Photoshop vs Lightroom.


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On top of the world

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While I am not particularly fond of my current job it does have some benefits.  This is from 11/02 when I got to work in the morning.