UV/Glow in the dark party

My eldest son asked for a UV/Glow in the dark party for his 12th birthday.  Now for most people this would have been a major panic, not for me though.  That's because 2years ago myself and a friend had planned to have one of these, sadly it didn'y happen as her husband was taken ill, but I did still have everything that we had bought in readiness for it - everything from paint to paper, straws to lights.

I had loads of ideas on a Pinterest board about UV and Glow in the dark.  This was a great help and gave me lots of ideas.  We hunted for an invite we liked but couldn't find one so we made our own, along with an instruction card -

instruction card

invite

 

These were printed out on paper, they would have been better had we been able to print in really bright colours, but never mind.  Son's friends all thought they looked good.

As soon as son said this is  what he wanted for his birthday we set about how we could decorate the house (yes we were hosting it at home!)  Well as loom bands were a big thing and they had a few that were glow in the dark I thought I would try them under the UV blacklight, they worked.  So when I next went to town I bought a handful of glow in the dark and UV reactive loom bands, I also contacted a friend that had them in her shop and she sent me loads (I paid her for them).  And we set about making chains and adding neon triangles to some of them.

We also had a play about with the UV face paints that we had to see what effects we could get.  They were pretty good and I did gets loads of comments from friends on facebook.

Big thick lines and patterns didn't look as good as thinner ones, and as with the star above the colours do mix and blend into each other.

We painted a sheet with neon paint and I was really pleased with how that looked, and we painted white canvas's as they were spare (i'll explain further down).

 Next to the canvas is a giant glow stick and a pringles tube painted black and then painted patterns with the neon paint.  Also pictured above is the shot glass sphere that is only half as I never finished it.  The shot glasses were the neon ones from £1 shop all glued together (see below).

We also had glow sticks made into balls, and glowsticks scattered all about the house to glow.

 As far as I am aware that is all of the decorations sorted and included on here.

For the party bags I bought clear celophane bags (son asked why no fancy party bags) and as I explained to him, being clear the UV light would work with what was going in them.  They had sherbert straws (£1 shop for 48), they had a glow in dark tattoo, a yellow stretchy man (glows under uv light), a bag of tic-tacs and nerds (mixed in clear bag) and a rubber stretchy ball thing.  All of which glowed under the light.

Lastly was the canvas - I bought an A3 blank canvas and had some UV and neon pens.  The idea was that everyone wrote the birthday boy a message in the pens and they would glow under the UV lights.  Everyone did write messages and it looked great under the lights.  These were a pack of 3 with 2 smaller ones that we just painted.

 

We started off the party with the normal lights on and no UV blacklights or disco lights on.  Once everyone had arrived and had got facepaints if they wanted it, neon moustaches, glow loombands and glow sticks and glow necklaces we turned on the disco lights only and main lights off, then me and hubby turned on all the UV black lights and all you could hear was "WOW" and "OMG i'm glowing" and "This is wicked" from son's friends.  My mission was complete and a success!!!

I had a few games organised which we did, I can't post photos of them as they have otehr peoples children in.  But the first we did was "Pass the camera".  Think along the lines of pass the parcel, except when the music stopped they were meant to take a photo of themselves (camera was set to party without flash).  Well they were taking them of each other.  We have heads cut off, part heads, part of my lounge etc, but all have made for good keep sakes for son.

We also played pass the parcel, in which there was forefits written on neon stars so they showed up under the UV lights.  Then we played the "Glow stick toss" game.  I had made a game board from a white shower curtain, cut shapes out and edged them with tape and then glow in dark tape so they could be seen and fixed it to my washing line pole and a pole across, I taped carrier bags to the back to catch the glow sticks.  (see  below).  Each shape gave the person a differnt amount of points if the glow stick landed in it.  They had 10 glowsticks each.

 Lastly I had 4 coloured glass bottles that had a glow stick inside, using the glow sticks from the glow toss game I made them into circles and they had a game of glow stick hoopla.

Prizes for games included glow axes (25p in the works sale), flashing glow necklaces (59p each from home bargains) and a tub of glow sticks (69p from home bargains).  For food we had normal party food as I couldn't be doing with trying to find foods that glow, and some that I found online as meant to didn't.  His cake was also meant to glow as the icing was made with neon food colours but sadly it wasn't brilliant, so I stuck glow sticks in it!

Everyone had a great time and here is a few pics of my sons.

the birthday boy

the birthday boy

his cards under the uv light

his youngest brother

his youngest brother

middle brother

middle brother

Pirate party the event

Well after a mad couple of months of preperation for the pirate party the day of it arrived, and no it didnt go to plan!  This was NOT my doing but the weathers - 2days before the wind got up really strong and our heavy weight gazebo buckled and took flight.  1day before it rained all day and all night so was too wet on the grass to do most of the games so panic set in as to HOW I could do it all indoors.  The answer to this was move table from lounge-diner into small kitchen and move small sofa into dining area, which gave more room in lounge.

I started hanging the bunting around my room, really pleased with how it looked -

1 of the mums even said she wouldn't have had the patience to sit and make them.  We hung a 3ftx4ft skull flag between 2 of the upstairs windows -

 

 and added a cross to the door and a wooden sign on the garden bench -

I also had a mini treasure chest (picked up from sealife centre) filled with gems and coins and necklaces (bought and won in 2p machines on holiday) and we sat a halloween skull beside it -

Luckily the rain held off (even though ground was wet) and we were able to dig for treasue in the sandpit and walk the plank outside -

 

As it was bit windy we couldn't leave the sail/mast in the ship but took them out for a photo - I cant addon here as it contains all the children who were at party not just my own.  We played pass the parcel that had pirate themed forfits in and "canon ball bop" - where they had to keep their canon (black balloon) afloat and if it hit the floor they were out, and pin the patch on the pirate, they really enjoyed the "canon ball busrt" - black balloons which had confetti and sweets in and they had bounce on them to busrt them (so glad I have laminate flooring and it was easy to sweep up) -

All of the food we had was given a "piratey name".  We had:

• captain's cakes (birthday boy was captain)
• dead mans fingers - cocktail sausages
• pirate gems on a stick - fruit chunks of plastic swords
• rat poo clusters - chocolate rice crispie cakes
• golden nuggets - chicken nuggets
• golden rocks - cheese & pineapple
• desert islands - cheese pizzas
• hawaiian islands - ham & pineapple pizzas
• vegetable island - mixed salad bits in a plate with a "carrot n lettuce palm tree"
• canon balls - malteasers
• golden rings - hula hoop crisps
• sea scrolls - wafer tubes with liquorice laces tied round them
• pirates teeth - popcon

The cake stand WAS a circus themed one and had animals all over it - that was until i attacked it with black paint and glued cut out skulls on it.  I think it looked really good.

Everyone seemed to have fun and enjoy themselves, which is the main thing.  My lil man said he loved his birthday party.



OH AND AS A LAST THING - I have already stated the planning and decoration making for my eldest birthday in November which is neon/UV/glow in dark - watch this space!!!

Pirate party part 2

So preparation for the party is still in full swing!!!  but things are getting there slowly.

the point for the front of the ship and the anchor and chain are now complete and fully painted, and i have made the ships wheel from cardboard and wool and a wrapping paper tube.

I have also made a mast and sail (no photo yet), from my old expandable washing line prop (upright) and an expandable pole (paintbrush extender to go across), they are tied and then gaffa taped together in a cross and i have used a red/black/white curtain to make the sail, it is stitched onto the cross pole loosely.

I have now bought the rings, necklaces, plastic gems and plastic coins for the dig for treasure, and I have collected loads of small rough rocks which I painted gold to resemble good nuggets and I also collected beach/sea glass and sanded any sharp edges, these were also varnished to make them look shinier.  I bought small gold net bags to add the kids treasure to once they have found it.


The new gazebo is bought as well, so now have 3 BUT if asda still have theirs reduced this week will grab another one!  (yes my garden is big enough to house 4 gazebos and them still look lost!)

The food labels are printed, they need laminating though and need buy food week of party.  I have also made and printed a set of "pirate rules", and "honorary pirate certificates" for each child (will add names on day when children arrive), these are going to be tied with ribbon and put in party bags.

The "rag banners" are coming on well (no photo as yet), I have made 3 and have enough rags to make a further 2 that all match and then have loads of oddments that dont make the full repeated pattern but I can still use them to tie on fence, gazebo legs etc.  I also managed to pick up a 5ft pirate skull flag for £2.10 off amazon!

I managed to pick up pirate plates, bowls and servettes from poundland and they were packs were 15 not 8 like ebay were selling.  I also got a set of pirate cake cases and mini flags to go in them from poundland.

I managed to get a small (3ft round) blue paddling pool which is going to have blue ballons (with rice in so dont float away) as water, and the crocodile I made from the boys old "dragon onesie", to walk the plank, just need buy a scaffolding plank from B&Q.

 Whilst we were on holiday alot of the 2p machines had big "crystals/diamonds" in them in a variety of colours (similar to picture below) and we managed to win quite alot of them.  We also managed to pick up a treasure chest when we went to sea life centre.





I got a set of skittles from £1 shop and printed pictures of pirates and taped them on, much safer for knock the pirate over than the option of old bean tins painted as no sharp edges.


I *think* everything is sorted, I have a list of things I still need to do and need to buy (but most on it is food).  I have found loads of pirate songs that we will have playing during the party as well, i've pre-warned the neighbours. lol!