Flowerhorn and I had another pool party a couple weeks ago and decided we wanted to make something new to add to the event.  We quickly decided on Drinko Plinko, a spin on the classic Price is Right game.  There are already a few Drinko Plinko tutorials out there on the internet so I won’t get into the details of how we built it, but ours was constructed very similarly to the one described here in this video.  The whole process only took a couple hours, and cost less than $50 in materials.  We were pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to take a video of people using it at the party, so instead you get this lame sauce video (cheesy music and all) of me playing by myself.

Are you disappointed I didn’t dance for you???  As you can see we what put cards at the bottom with instructions on what to do if your ball lands in a particular slot.  We made some before the party but also left out a marker and some blanks so people could make them on the fly.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “Sweet video of you playing plinko by yourself, you probably didn’t even have a party, who would want to hang out with you nerds?”   Which is a valid concern, I’d probably be thinking the same thing, I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would want to be around me .  However we do have some evidence.   We brought back the photo booth that Flowerhorn posted about a few months back.  Pretty much the same setup as before, but this time we replaced the tie dye backdrop with a wall covered in poster board.   In addition to all the props, we left out a bunch of markers for people to draw on the wall and create the backdrop as the party progressed.  It turned out to be a really fun idea.  To capture it all, I made this video montage of all the photos (uncut, every photo taken, in order).

It was a great way to sum up the vibe of the party, I have a feeling the photo booth will be making its way back into our next one.

Doc and I decided to throw a party for both our birthdays. Actually we were going to throw a party either way but why not say it was for our birthdays since they fell pretty close…Sorry for Partying. We are always trying to come up with some fun stuff for our parties and we had a good list brewing: kegs, ice luge, jungle juice, beer pong, flip cup, disco ball with lasers, and jello shots. We were at a bar and they had a photo booth that you would see at a mall and it was fun. It gave me the idea to build our own photo booth for our party. The result was a great party with some AMAZING pics…. Check out my Instructable on how to make it

When I’m at a show or festival, carrying a backpack is a must.  How else am I going to haul around my lasers, bubbles, camera, firework glasses, frisbee, glow sticks, gum, head lamp, batteries… you get the idea…

In my opinion, anything worth wearing that often is worth lighting up.  So I decided that lighting up my backpack was going to be my first EL Wire project.

To learn how best to sew the wire into my backpack I followed an instructable on sewing EL Wire into garments.   The most important thing I learned from the instructable was the importance of having a plan, and mapping out where the EL Wire would go before sewing it in.  I actually attached all of the wire to the backpack with pins before I began sewing.

All and all, I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  The back pack always receives a lot of compliments whenever I wear it and it also makes it easy for my friends to find me in a crowd.  If I were to do it over again (which I probably will), I would have added more wire to the center of the backpack, as apposed to just along the edges.  I also would have used two different colored wires side by aside, to make the effect more pronounced.

Please post any questions or comments you may have.  Or email me doc@docstoyland.com.  I’d love to hear about similar projects people have worked on.