Glow in the Dark Party Ideas – things you need to know!

My daughter has wanted to have a Glow in the Dark party since she was small. But first we had to exhaust all those little girl party themes, you know Dora, Princesses etc, now turning 11 we decided to revisit the idea. As kids get older it gets harder and harder to pick a theme they approve of and I’ve got to say this one is perfect for Tweens.

A collection of highlighters and neon pencils available for the guests to make their own artwork.

This is an image of neon wash tape.

Rainbow loom neon rubber bands.

Firstly this is a theme that requires quite a bit of planning and preparation. The first thing you should do is purchase a blacklight torch. We got these small inexpensive ones from Amazon for $7.25 each. Get as many as you can afford as they come in handy for party activities and extra lights for photography. Once you have your torch pop it in your handbag and take it everywhere you go. Why, it’s your Glow in the Darkness tester. When you are out shopping for paint, card, nail polish, or whatever, check with the torch if it really does Glow in the Dark. Many products that look like they should don’t.

Secondly you will probably need to hire a blacklight. So check out local party hire companies and book it in for your party date. We hired two of the tube type which are preferable to the bulbs. That took care of our hall way and the room the kids were dancing in. Basically the more blacklight the better so if you want to blackout more of your house you will need more.

Now start gathering your products. We are based in New Zealand so we had to order a lot of things online. We got all our plates, cups, glow sticks and facepaint from various vendors on Amazon. Have a look at our Neon Glow in the Dark Pinterest board to see the full list of products and suppliers we used. Make sure you read reviews and check anything you buy does really glow under blacklight. All the products we used worked great!

Choose your blackout space, a room with few windows will be easiest. We emptied one room out and hung up black polythene over the windows and on the walls as decoration. Then we hung a polythene curtain in our hall way so the room stayed completely dark even when the front door was opened. In the entrance way we had a disco ball to make a great entrance.

Glow in the Dark Balloons look amazing.

Make your own Neon Chandelier

Disco Ball

Light Painting

Decoration Ideas

• Glow in the dark balloons – these look amazing in the blacklight.
• Neon chandelier – cut strips of neon colored fabric and tie to a hula hoop then suspend from the ceiling in the party room.
• Black paper or polythene – splatter black paper or polythene with Glow in the Dark paint or stick on neon sticky notes or shapes cut out of neon colored paper.

Activities

With this theme there are a heap of fun possibilities. Here’s what we did…

• UV face-painting and Glow in the dark nail polish – a good idea to do this when kids arrive so they are painted up for the photos.
• Glow Stick Party Pack – this pack had a heap of Glow Sticks and a bunch of different connectors so you could make ear rings, brackets, bunny ears or sunglasses and kept the guest busy for quite awhile.
• Dancing – you can get some great light painting photos with the kids dancing, playing with Glow in the dark Balloons adorned with their glow sticks.
• Glow in the dark scavenger hunt – this does require a bit of pre-planing but is a lot of fun and here’s where your blacklight torches come in.

Menu

It’s a little hard to think of Glow in the Dark food without striking fears of toxic, radioactive, fish with three eyes like you see on the Simpsons. However just like white t-shirts just glow under blacklight some foods do too. I was tempted to buy some glow in the dark food coloring that I’d seen but ended up using UV food glitter to give some of the food the extra glow. As this was an evening party we kept the food pretty simple.

• Topsy Turvy Splat Cake
• Twisties – these are an Antipodean delicacy but I’m confident you can find a replacement glowing cheese snack in your neck of the woods.
• Sugar Cookies with electric colored icing.
• CakePops

Things to remember

Don’t forget to tell your guests to come dressed in Neon colors and white. This is a party that works much better after dark.

Don’t forget to check out the photo gallery

Printables for the party can be purchased from our Etsy shop

Credits

Thanks to the Hopkins family for their Disco Ball delivery and installation service and the awesome photos.

We were inspired by the Neon Glow-in-the-dark party featured on Kara’s party ideas recently. This is a fabulous looking party but we think we’ve put our own unique spin on it.

Another source I’d like to credit is this article BRIGHT Ideas for a Blacklight Glow Party. This is a great article which gave lots of fabulous advice which you should definitely check out.