I think we have a new October tradition!
inspired by all of the Halloween decorations and Play at Home Mom, we decided to have dinner by blacklight. I picked up these blacklights for $10 each at Walmart. Yes, I’m admitting to driving to a different county to go to Walmart to pick up cheap blacklights (there is no walmart in King county and blacklights at the 3 other stores I checked were 3Xs the cost). Simon has been playing with glow in the dark and blacklight reactive objects under them all week. They are a ton of fun. So tonight we extended the play to dinner. I researched as much as I could about food that fluoresces under blacklights. I read that vitamines A (beta carotene) B1, B2, and B12 are all blacklight reactive and I hoped to crush up some and sprinkle it on our food but I was not successful in getting it to work. I must reshearch this topic further becuase I read that B12 is the secret behind Monster Energy drink’s orange glow. For tonight’s dinner party we stuck with tonic water which is made with quinine (from tree bark) it’s extremely bitter and usually used in the drink gen and tonic. I simply froze tonic water in ice cube trays and made jello with it for some eerie drinks and dessert. If you want to make your own blacklight reactive jello just buy the knox gelatin and follow the instructions on the package. You will need 4 packets of gelatin, 2 cups of some sort of juice (I used white grape) and 2 cups of tonic water (you can buy HFCS free tonic water and Whole Foods Market). Both kids found this to be too bitter so you might actaully need to make it more juice less tonic water (or add sugar).
these are our florescent ice cubes which melted into florescent water – the next logical extension of this is of course blacklight bath 🙂 and tonic water is pretty inexpensive so don’t but it past me to fill the bath with it.
and this is our glow in the dark jello.
we also bought florescent green hair spray (as you can see so clearly on Simon) that was a huge hit once he realized it’s purpose. Our table center piece is just florescent plastic shot glasses that I found at the party store, Simon has had a lot of fun playing with them. The company that makes them also makes plates and cups. We might have to experiment with them next year. I also found on http://www.blacklight.com that you can buy all sorts of fun stuff that our local party store didn’t carry; nail polish, makeup, bubbles, balloons etc, etc.
showing off the hairspray (comes in like 4 different colors)
showing off his glowing teeth!
All in all it was a ton fun. I don’t think Talia was quite sure what to think of it. We gave her some jello to play with and she loved squishing it but I’m not sure she even noticed that it was glowing.
If this post inspires you or if you have any other ideas of blacklight reactive “stuff” we could add please comment!
My Portfolio | Contact Me | Follow Me @emilyWbrown | “like me” on facebook
Portfolio | Contact Me | Book a Session. . .
This looks soooo fun! We are definitely gonna do this!!
I just pinned beautiful pic on my Pinterest and linked up this post to my blog post scheduled to publish in tomorrow morning… if it works properly :/
It was supper fun!