Glow Party

Of course, glowsticks or lightsticks give off light! Glowsticks are plastic tubes which contain two substances that glow when they come in contact with one another.

The glowstick is kept inert until it is bent in half, breaking the small container inside, and allowing the two chemicals to mix and cause a reaction that produces luminescence. Just shake the glowstick thoroughly to encourage mixing and there you go!

The humble glowstick, created in the 1960s, provides plenty of light at a good distance, gives several hours of light, and is inexpensive to produce and buy. Other than the snapping action required to activate the chemicals inside there are no moving parts, is very durable and is not likely to break before of after use.

Glowsticks are used by the military, law enforcement, hikers and campers, at home, in emergencies and at clubs around the world.

Now glowsticks come in a myriad colors, sizes and applications, but it all started with the green glowstick that everyone knows and loves.

Glowsticks and LEDs have all kinds of fun applications at your next soiree.

One of the ones I like are the cups with space for a 4 inch glow stick. They come with green standard, but you can buy other colors to put in there. Use them for themeing and to identify whose drink is whose.

Haven't had enough glowsticks in your drinks? They sell glowing swizzle sticks too!

Need some more light in your drinks? They make little plastic LED ice cubes too. Just pop em in the freezer and when they're cold, pop em in your drink. Press a button to make them blink and shine in different colors.

Of course, there are also coasters to put your drinks on that light up, too.

These all work great for your hip club or bar - mood lighting right in the drinks!

Carrying glowing gear to a party is one thing, but having it be a part of you is something else entirely! Check out these body piercings below.

Note: Any piece of glow stick jewelry (bracelets and necklaces) will probably fit through a nose ring (seen here) or lobe plug hole, and the 1.5 inch sticks would most likely fit into smaller holes nicely.

Having glowing stuff at special events makes everyone want to get to know you better, and if you give some away, you'll be REALLY popular.

This section is devoted to getting in the spirit of and helping other people enjoy special events.

Breast Cancer 3 Day Events - The 3 day event (See the3day.org) is a 60 mile walk, 20 miles per day, performed by breast cancer sufferers, survivors and supporters through cities across the U.S. Everyone is encouraged to wear, and they do wear), all the pink apparel they can find, and you get some pretty festive outfits.

At night there is a camp with facilities and fun, but what about showing your Pink Pride at night? Solution: Pink Glow Sticks Bracelets and Necklaces. These can be found in bulk, make great icebreakers and will have people remember you as the "pink lightstick guy/gal".

Patriotic Holidays - When you head out to the inevitable evening barbecue or fireworks show, be sure to take some red, white and blue glow sticks jewelry. Just as plentiful in bulk, and everyone will be dying to have one to make some color before the big show kicks off.

St. Patrick's Day - Put good ol' green glow sticks to use in bracelet and necklace form. A great icebreaker in bars and clubs (because lets face it, that's where you're going to be, right?), and even better when you give em away.

There are lot's of other ideas for special occasions, but here's a quick list.

Use white glow sticks for weddings and other church proceedings instead of candles.

Use white glow sticks for sorority (black and white) inductions and ceremonies.

Use orange glowsticks and jewelry as Halloween giveaways.

Use red and green glowsticks for Christmas decorations or white and blue glowsticks for Hannukhah (or both for your Winter Fesitval/All-Inclusive December Throwdown).

Concerts! - Why wave your boring old cel phone or light someone on fire with your lighter (if the place even lets you HAVE it), when you can be waving and wearing strands of just about any color imaginable. Go themed for the band, dress all your friends so each represents a color, or bring every color you can find and go wild. A definite hit in the crowd.

These are just a few suggestions for themeing - use your imagination and go nuts!

There's one great application for Glow in the Dark Masks and that's having them tucked away in a dark place inside or across the yard and having them be revealed to scare the living daylights out of anyone who sees them. Shift them in and out of cover and make people wonder what's lurking in the garage or forest.

Glow in the Dark masks come in a variety of styles, but due to the quality of GITD technology, most features will be kind of fuzzy anyway, making the overall impression that much more eerie.

Suggestions: Put the mask in a brightly lit area all day, and then cart the mask out to your location in a box. Leave the box at your location until you're ready to put on your show. Take the mask out of the box and hold it where people will see it. It helps to have a partner say "Hey, what was that!?" getting others to look. Then, disappear behind the trees after they get a bare peek. Cover the mask and move to a new dark area, repeat. Get people good and freaked out.

Indoors, if your party or get together is really dark, you can move around and provide mobile "Boos!"

Another neat trick indoors is to have the lights off in the bathroom. Shut the door, placing the mask somewhere a person could stand at head height (the open shower is a good location). As the person opens the door to go into the bathroom, while they fumble for the lights they'll see the mask first!

Warning: Your guests may not need to use the bathroom after this prank, so use at your own risk.

Another good decorating use is to have the masks placed here and there in dark parts of the room or outside in dark areas as creepy floating head decorations. A little fishing line or rope is all that's needed to hang them.

And, OF COURSE, if you want to give trick-or-treaters that I-don't-want-to-go-to-sleep feeling, you can use any dark area near the house to jump out or just peer out as a floating face.

Bonus Suggestion: Make a haunted house with dark rooms in certain area where some rooms just have floating GITD faces, or better yet, misdirect in rooms by having a creepy floating face in one corner and then flick the lights on and have the "jump" come from the opposite corner. Guaranteed to throw people off and make em scream!

Note: You can do similar effects with GITD makeup, but then you can't leave that behind. Masks have more versatility.

Ok, we've been talking about fun, but let's take a moment to talk about safety and survival, too.

If your car breaks down at night, or you're lost in the woods, it will be awful hard to see and be seen.

You could use road flares, but some people don't like them, they shouldn't be handled once activated and if you are in the wilderness, you probably won't have them, and those who do could carelessly start a fire.

Orange lightsticks to the rescue!

There are several which can come in handy in a variety of ways.

Low intensity, long duration orange sticks can be affixed to clothing and used to see in the dark while traveling, if you have to. It's smart to hold one or affix one to whichever side is facing nearby traffic when walking down the shoulder so as to be seen on the street/highway. This is especially true for rural roads and highways. They can also be set down in lieu of cones in dark areas to indicate your stopped vehicle and/or debris and get traffic to go around safely.

Orange is viewed as a maintenance crew safety color, and is recognized by hunters. The latter is really useful if you are traveling through the woods and stumble on another hunter's camp.

An orange triangle (3 sticks combined or several strings looped together) indicates slow moving vehicles, road problems or a stopped vehicle (usually with some other symbology). Hanging from your raised trunk or set on the ground in a dark shoulder will indicate stoppage.

High intensity, low duration orange sticks can be used to flag down motorists, search aircraft or other search personnel at long distances. These usually burn for only 5 minutes, but are extremely bright.

If you are clever, you can use necklace strands to write messages and attach them to signs for future use. "Help" is usually the most straightfoward method.

Every emergency kit, power outage kit, toolkit and medical kit should have an alternate source of light, particularly one that will get someone's attention and instantly indicate a problem.

Jack O'Lanterns

Fire is the traditional method to light your pumpkins, but you generally only get one color. What if you want to give you Jack an evil red glow, or hot white gaze, or eerie green tint?

Typically, glow in the dark stuff and glowsticks don't work well in low light - it has to be almost totally dark to get the best effect.

Solution: Set your Jack O Lantern away from front doors and patios where lights tend to be on. Look for the darkest area you can find, especially wooded areas (no fire, no worries) and set them amongst the bushes. Hedgerows and trees make good locations for creepy Lanterns.

Crack and insert one or more red or white glowsticks to taste and enjoy a different glow from your Jack O Lanterns.

Tea Light Ambiance

There are two great types of ambient light for Halloween and Haunted Houses - Flame orange and eerie green.

Get little tea light cups and slip in a 1.5 inch light stick for each one. Set them around the house, out on the patio, on the walk up to the house, as nightlights in the halls, anywhere to give the right amount of light and proper haunting themeing.

Pool Lighting

Your pool has lights already, but that's the problem - they're nothing special. Crack a few sticks of different colors and drop them in the pool for a cool after dark swim party.

Note: These are also highly effective if your light conks out while scuba diving. Just crack it and keep going. The 360 degree light will illuminate everything around you.

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Green Poi Dancer - These Poi balls are pretty cool, and make for awesome light shows, just watch your neck! - Source: Wikipedia

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A time lapse composite of several kinds of lights including glowsticks and LEDs - Dude looks like he's going to need an energy bar when he's done! - Source: House of Rave Blog