Spooky Streamers!

One of the most fun things about setting up for our Halloween party this year is that our family room addition is semi-functional.  It isn't anywhere near finished, but it has walls and windows and a Foosball table!  Actually the really fun part is that it ISN'T finished.  We can tack stuff to the walls, drip paint, hang stuff from the ceiling without fear of damaging anything because it is just the studs and plywood.  So the fun thing for the week, besides family Foosball matches, has been the black light that PJ temporarily attached to the ceiling.  We weren't really sure what we would do with it, but thought it would be fun. Oh boy, is it fun!  We keep turning it on and walking out there and seeing what glows.  It is really surprising how many white things don't.  Not sure why, but it is equally fun to see which things do.  My Halloween bins were temporarily stored in the family room and at some point I realized that several costumes were glowing, so I got an idea.

This is cheap white tulle under black light.  As soon as I saw the petticoats glowing I thought of shredded tulle, like cobwebs or Mrs. Havisham's wedding dress (either way it sounded spectacularly spooky.  I went to the fabric store and was happy to find tulle on sale 50% off, making it 74 cents a yard.  I bought 10 yards an started ripping it into jagged strips with my hands.  It was kind of fun and really easy to rip it to shreds.  We stapled it up, but I am sure I could have tied it to something or taped it if I was worried about walls.  

Here is the progress about half way through.  It looks impressive, but the picture doesn't come close to how great it looks in person!

Here is my partner in crime, putting up the last piece of tulle.  We didn't even use all of the 10 yards that I bought.  I am really excited that we should be able to tear it down and re-use it again next year.

Here are a few other fun things that glowed nicely.  White paper glows fantastically, so any printed signs really pop off of the wall.  The pumpkins are on a fabric that has white outlines. It looked OK before, but SO much better in the black light.

PJ had some colored hair spray dye and her sprayed it on the walls for some spooky graffiti.

OK, this one looks much better in person.  Those cheap plastic orange pumpkins that kids use to collect candy glow really well.  I found one at Goodwill fro 25cents an already had another one in my stash.  If we keep doing this party, I think I will start a plastic pumpkin collection and make a pumpkin totem pole!  Apparently anything in the neon color categories glows like crazy, including this funky orange wig that PJ couldn't resist playing around with.  He's crazy, but that's what I love about him!