Glow Stick Fun

My little town does a "Nights of Lights" each December welcoming in the Christmas Season. It is a take on the Disney electric parade.

People all wear battery powered lights or glow sticks. The parade has cars decked out with lights and huge decorations all lit up. This is one of my favorite parades our town put on.

So being the crafter that I am I go all out. The first year I made this huge wire headdress with  battery powered lights and it weighed around 10 pounds. (D batteries) Then, I found battery powered lights that used AA batteries, still very heavy.

Doing research online I found a site that has something called el wires. Loved them! Here is the link:
 http://www.save-on-crafts.com/neon.html
So many possibilities for these el wires. I bought a 6 foot blue one and it has a very bright glow. Well worth the money.  This would be great for Halloween and trick or treaters, just something to keep in mind.

For my son I use glow sticks to create some wild head pieces. Go to Michaels or the Dollar Tree store and pick up packs of glow sticks, a dollar a pack, and plastic head bands. Grab your glue gun and have some fun!

 My son wanted a Mohawk and for our friend I made loops. She said she had a crown of flowers. They both got so much attention and of course glowed all night long.

Details on how I make these headbands.  When you open the package of glow sticks take out the connectors. Leave the glow sticks inside the package until your ready to crack them and get the glow on.

Next decide what kind of headband you want. For the loops you will glue gun the connectors directly onto the headband. Keep in mind spacing and angle each connector slightly away from each other so the glow sticks don't crash into each other. I then put some sparkly ribbon around the connectors to hide them.

For the Mohawk it takes a little more planning. I used the stem of a fake flower. It bends and the wire is covered. Crop it to the desired length.  Next take the glow stick connectors and poke a hole through the bottom of one end. Wire it to the flower stem. Once you have them all wired on make sure no wires are poking out, little kids hands can get hurt if any wires are sticking out. Next wire the Mohawk to the headband. Again, put some sparkly ribbon around all connectors to hide and secure everything.

Simple, cute and so many possibilities. You could make the headbands ahead of time for a slumber party and let the kids crack the glow sticks and design their own headgear. Kids of all ages love to play with glow sticks....including me!

Be creative,

Ramona