Glow-in-the-dark Party

How to host a glow-in-the-dark party – party supplies, games, decorations, and photography tips!

Glow-in-the-Dark Party

Hey crafty friends! I can’t believe we’re nearly two weeks into summer vacation already. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have the kids’ home. The house has been nonstop craziness with all three but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Today I want to share with you the surprise Glow-in-the-dark Party I put together for the kids last day of school. In the past I’ve tried to plan a fun activity or small family party to welcome summer, like our Summer Kick-Off Party. The kids look forward to this tradition every year! It’s such a fun way to make new memories and to celebrate the end of another school year. Over the last few months my kids have really been into glow-in-the-dark crafts, which inspired me to create a glow-in-the-dark party for them. This party was a lot of fun to work on. I’m amazed at how many glow in the dark party supplies and craft products you can find. I’ve listed Amazon affiliate links below to where you can find the majority of the supplies we used.

Glow in the Dark Party Ideas

Supplies:

Blacklight
Blacklight Bulb
Neon Pink Glow Wire
Glow Stick Party Pack
Glow in The Dark Duck Tape
Glow in the dark Pony Beads
EK tools Star Punch
Glow-in-the-dark vinyl (Expressions Vinyl)
Black Tablecloth
Glow in the dark Fabric Paint
Glass bottles (Michaels)
Balloons (Target, Wal-Mart)

Glow in the dark Decorations

You guys, glow-in-the-dark vinyl exists! I had no idea this was a product you can buy to create your own custom shapes and designs. Thanks to our friends from Expressions Vinyl we were able to make our own glowing backdrop. I used a couple of sheets of glow-in-the-dark vinyl and a star craft punch to create a starry background. The stars were placed on black tablecloths that I found on Amazon. These tablecloths are great quality and perfect for our table and backdrop.

Our backdrop also had a battery operated pink wire light. I was VERY impressed with this product. It takes a couple AA batteries and is easy to hang around your display.

I added glow-in-the-dark and LED balloons to our party display. The LED balloons are pretty popular right now. You can find them at most craft stores, Wal-Mart and Target.

You can’t have a glow-in-the-dark party without glow sticks! We used our glow-in-the-dark mason jars to display a variety of glow sticks and wands. There’s also “lanterns” you can make with the sticks that I placed around the table display and the floor. I believe the glow stick lanterns are from Wal-Mart.

Note: We used 2 black light bulbs on our ceiling light and one small black light on the table.

Glow in the Dark Games and Activities

To keep the kids entertained I created a few glow in the dark games. Everyone’s favorite seemed to be the ring toss game I made with glass bottles and mini glow-in-the-dark Duck Tape. I simply added the glow tape around the bottles then we used glow sticks as the rings.

Another game we played was beanbag toss. I used the glow-in-the-dark vinyl and star punch to stick onto the beanbags. I also added the vinyl to plastic beach pails. The black light illuminated the glow in the dark vinyl, which made the game easy to see and fun to play in the dark.

We also had blacklight pong balls for the kids to throw into the buckets. You can probably imagine what popular college game these are for, but rest assured the games were strictly kid-friendly. ;)

One of my favorite finds was a bag of glow in the dark pony beads! The kids made bracelets and necklaces to wear using glow in the dark string.

If you’re hosting a party and want an easy party favor, mini white canvas bags and fabric paint are perfect for small items. My daughter ended up using the glow-in-the-dark paint to create fun designs on the bags. She’s now using them to keep her small toys inside to carry back and forth from grandma’s house.

Glow in the Dark Photography Tips

Taking night pictures can be a little tricky. I used a slow shutter speed to capture the entire party display. However, this doesn’t work when there’s movement like when photographing people. The pictures of the kids actually playing the games were mainly taken on my phone. For the party display I manually adjusted my camera settings to:
Shutter speed 30.0 seconds
Aperture f4-8 (8 for the big display and smaller f4-5.6 for the close up pictures)
ISO 125-500 (depending on the picture, some of them required a little higher ISO while other’s glowed too bright).
If you know your basic camera settings play around with them to adjust for the lighting and glowing items you’re using.

The party was a hit! My husband took the kids swimming at grandmas while I set up the display. I loved seeing the look on their faces when they walked in. It was definitely a fun way to welcome summer.

A few more glow-in-the-dark projects you may like:

Glow-in-the-dark slime

Glow-in-the-dark mason jars