The summer break is over and it's time to get back to school on Monday!  As a farewell to summer, we hosted a Back to School Glow Party for the girls and a few of their friends.  Of course, no party is complete without matching bestie shirts!  I have been dying to try the Speedball Night Glo inks. I created 2 sets of shirts.  For my youngest and her 2 best friends, we made matching shirts with animal icons representing each of their favorite animals.  For these shirts, I used 2 colors – the Speedball Night Glo Fabric Ink, White and Speedball Night Glo Fabric Ink, Blue.  I was really impress at how well they looked on navy shirts!

For the older girls, I made retro skate shirts.  I used the Speedball Night Glo Fabric Ink, Green and tested it on 3 different color shirts.  It worked great on all 3 colors (I think the light pink was my favorite though!).  What was most impressive about the Speedball Night Glo inks is how well they actually worked!  In the daylight, the look like normal screen printed designs.  When the lights went out, they had a radiant glow!

Supplies Needed for Screen Printing with your Vinyl Cutter

• Speedball Night Glo Fabric Ink, White
• Speedball Night Glo Fabric Ink, Green
• Speedball Night Glo Fabric Ink, Blue
•  Oracal 651 Vinyl – any color (or HTV if you want to make a permanent screen)
• Speedball Screen Printing Frame 10×14
• Squeegee
• Painter’s Tape
• Transfer Tape
• Scissors
• Blank T-shirts
• Cricut Maker
• Screen Printing Press (optional)
• Heat Press, Easy Press 2 or household iron

The Screen Printing Process

Glow Party Party Setup

The girls helped me make cupcakes, brownies and cookies all covered in neon sprinkles. For a photo booth setup, I screen printed a black piece of butcher paper with white school icons. The backdrop made for the perfect spot to take photos when their friends arrived. We had loads of glow sticks to create glasses, flowers and more!

Our first stop for the Glow Party was a trip to the skating rink!  After a few hours of skating, we returned home to make glow-in-the-dark slime. The slime was a big hit (and easy for the kids to make on their own).

How to Make Glow in the Dark Slime

My girls are still excited to make slime. For our Glow Party activity, the kids each made glow in the dark slime using Elmer's Glow glue.  We used the same recipe that we do for traditional slime, just substituting the glow glue in place or school glue.  Here's the recipe we followed:

Supplies Needed for Glow in the Dark Slime:

• 1 Bottle of Glow in the Dark Elmer's Glue (5oz size)
• 2 tsp Contact Solution
• 1 TB Baking Soda
• Plastic bowl and mixing spoon

Note: These are the amounts we used per kid.  Each person needs their own bottle of glue.  It was also helpful to have a separate bowl and spoon for each.

How to make Glow in the Dark Slime:

1. Empty the bottle of glue in your bowl.
2. Stir in baking soda and contact solution.
3. Add more contact solution as needed if the slime is too sticky.
4. Stir until it pulls away from the edges of the bowl.
5. Squirt a little contact solution in your hands and start kneading the slime.
6. Turn out the lights and check out your glow in the dark slime!

This is a very forgiving recipe. My girls don't like to measure out the ingredients so they just add baking soda and contact solution until they get the desired consistency.  With 6 kids making their own version of this slime, they all turned out great, so following the recipe precisely was not necessary.

This was such a fun way to end a busy summer!  I hope everyone has a great school year!