Well it's time to start decorating for Halloween. Are you making a blacklight room, haunted house, Halloween display or planning a Halloween party? Here are some suggestions:
1. Do not use incandescent light bulbs, you know the ones you buy from your local Walmart, Target, or hardware store. These bulbs give off very little blacklight effect and extreme heat. I've personally burned the underside of my arm on one of these and the burn mark was there for four months. Instead I recommend compact fluorescent blacklight bulbs for a real blacklight effect, the newer UV Led Blacklight bulbs, or of course the normal tube style fluorescent lights. The more wattage you have for a fluorescent the better the blacklight effect. One 48" blacklight will usually light up a 12' x 12' area fairly well. The other key is to have plenty of blacklight reactive items to make the areas seem like they have more light then they actually do. What's the point of having a blacklight if you don't have anything that reacts to it?
2. Use plenty of blacklight reactive items for a great effect. Items like fluorescent or glow in the dark tape are great for making removable designs or marking walkways. Fluorescent paint is great painting your own designs or doing a splatter effect on walls. It can also be used on skin and clothing although we wouldn't recommend it for long time usage on the skin. No one wants blocked pores. Also, for clothing obviously use it on clothing that is specifically for this purpose. Don't put it on your $1,000 Gucci dress. Glow in the dark stars or paint can add that outer space feeling to ceilings and walls. Try making a black room with glow in the dark stars or stickers and having someone in all black with the same stickers. They will disappear into the background. There is also invisible blacklight reactive paint. This is great for a white room that you want to turn the lights off and have a design appear out of nowhere. Definitely recommend a white background for this. They're are also blacklight reactive balloons, stars, beaded curtains, makeup, blacklight reactive bubbles, blacklight posters, etc to help finish off any room.
3. Use invisble ink for readmissions. You can get your own custom rubber stamp, a stamp pad and invisible ink. Then you can see who's supposed to be there and who isn't. It can be used for other things to like marking tickets, contests where the winning 'ticket' has an invisible ink mark on it.
4. Strobe lights are always a good thing for Halloween. The super fast flashing helps to disorient and give that slow motion effect. Just be sure to warn people that you are using them as the fast flashing lights can set off epileptic seizures.
If you have other ideas or questions about an idea. Comment to this post or email me direct to request to become an author on the Blacklight Blog at Blacklight.org.
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