Glow Party

Celebrating this 12 year old’s birthday – Glow style! Before you get started planning your own glow in the dark party here is tip #1 – buy a UV flashlight. You can find them online or as close as walmart for about $10.  Keep this little baby in the purse and take it with you EVERYWHERE while you prep for this party. You can use it in stores to see if something “neon” actually glows.  There are some bright things that surprisingly don’t glow.  The kids had a blast taking the flashlight to their closets and throughout the house to find other things that glow as we prepared and planned.

ACTIVITIES

We used two blacklights and a lamp with a blacklight bulb. The more lights the better. Some fun glow parties I have seen are in unfinished basements where blacklights could be hung from the ceiling (ideal) but we had to put them on shelves and tables. It worked great.

The girls did coloring, which was super cool with the blacklights. We just went through our crayons and highlighters, used our nifty UV flashlight, and found everything we needed and already had. They made rubberband bracelets that glowed and necklaces with glowing beads.

Since we are always telling our kids not to draw on themselves, of course they loved designing and painting body art with gel pens and highlighters. We tried this out before the party (again with our now-favorite UV flashlight). It’s so cool!  The girls also painted their nails with some glow in the dark polish.

Glam Shop Dress Up. Most of these items came from the dollar store or my own closet.

We had one outdoor scavenger hunt for glow bugs hidden in the yard. They took turns with the flashlight to find all of them. They were clear bugs from the dollarstore that glow with the blacklight. (ok, this picture looks likes something si-fi or something you’d see under a microscope … but they were the only bugs I found that glowed. Boys would eat this up and the girls could have cared less what they looked like – they were on the hunt.)

FOOD

After a while of playing in the dark it was time for cake and ice cream. I decided to avoid eating in the dark all together and just made fun and bright cupcakes.  There’s plenty of awesome things people do with food, but mostly it is the plasticware that glows and I decided to save money and skip that.

DECORATING

It was hard to end the party because the fun just never stopped.  We had simple decorations with streamers and posters. Beyond that the glow was all that was needed.

TIPS

#1 - Buy a UV Flashlight

#2 - Don’t think you have to do glowing food. You can save a lot of money by not glowing your food, plus it will save you a huge mess to clean up later.

#3 - A tripod is best for photos in the dark, but that only helps if your subject isn’t moving – which obviously isn’t the case with kids. I played around with the settings on my phone before the party and found that the pictures weren’t crisp but were good enough.

#4 - I saved money by borrowing a blacklight. Start asking around for friends or neighbors who have a light you can borrow.

#5 – Plan on this party lasting a long time. Playing in the dark is so much fun! I think a small group is ideal, but if your space allows for more people, by all means PARTY IT UP!

INVITATIONS

It was tricky to make an invite that appeared bright enough to be glowing. This has a lot going on. You can just as easly do black with basic bright font and it will look awesome. We didn’t do thank you cards for this party, Paige just gave them stuff that glowed with a thank you tag.

Download a blank invite below.