Thursday, October 11, 2012

Mad Scientist: Costume #2 with Slime



Last week, I posted pictures of my grandson's Mad Scientist costume for his upcoming backyard camp out. At age nine, he's all about the Halloween gore. However, for school it's not acceptable so we needed a back-up costume. This is it.

I purchased a second lab coat and dusted it with neon green powdered colorant (Yep, the same color used in soap making). I again used the salt tubes sold at GoPlanet and filled them with various ghoulish looking items. I also made some slime (see recipe below) that I will pin to the lab coat in various places. I won't do that until the day of his class party because the homemade slime needs to stay in the fridge until used.

I didn't have a pocket protector so I used a soft eyeglass case and stuffed it with some ink pens. Every scientist needs pens to formulate their calculations, right? I found some electrical wire and a couple of electrical wing nuts in the garage. Let's see... latex gloves, test tube vials, plastic syringe, creepy plastic spiders, a bat and of course, what's a lab cost without some kind of skeleton part?

Slime Recipe:
  • 1/4 cup glue (I used Elmer's, but any off brand will do)
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon borax powder (you'll find this in the laundry isle of your grocery store)
  • 1/4 additional water (put this is a separate cup)
  • Ziploc bag
  • Food coloring (I used green)
 Add borax to one cup water. Stir until dissolved. Mix the glue and 1/4 cup water together (50/50 solution).

Add equal parts of the glue solution and borax solution in the Ziploc bag. One half cup of each solution will yield one cup of slime. Add food coloring and seal the bag. Knead mixture until it becomes putty-like. Store in the fridge inside a sealed bag when not in use.

Here's the squishy, gooey slime that will be part of the costume. Best part, kids can play with it even after Halloween is over.


Every Mad Scientist must keep records. I recovered the front and back of an old book (it was one of those hard cardboard baby books) with printed artwork. I didn't want to recreate pages, so I placed a rubber band around the outside of the book...seemed like something a mad scientist might do.
The back cover is a printout of chemistry equations and clearly indicates that this scientific book is the property of Dr. N. Telligent.

The little wiry gizmo by the book is going to be glued to the top of the mad scientist wig I purchased. It's just a bunch of gadgets glued to the top of a plastic storage container.

If your finances are strapped, head on over to a thrift store and purchase a white dress shirt for the lab coat. Cut of the shirt tails and use them to create extra pockets for the lab coat. Press the bottom of the shirt and stitch the hem for a nice finished look.


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