If you’re coming in late, we’re doing back to school week! Kate’s done 2 great posts about Breakfast on the run, and School Lunches. And I showed you a fun rainy day recipe for homemade Slime– perfect for entertaining little (and who are we kidding? BIG) hands. Today I have a little hodge-podge of 3 more kitchen tricks. This stuff is purely for fun, and for making your kids think you are awesome.
The secret to glowing food is tonic water (diet tonic water works too). It contains quinine, and guess what happens when you expose quinine to black light?
fun, right?? So if you mix up a drink (like Crystal Light lemonade like I’ve done below) and add a little tonic water…
magical glowing beverages! (Have I ever mentioned that Kate hates the word “beverage?” Hey Kate, beverage beverage beverage!! She’s totally hiding under her computer desk right now.) Pretty much anything you can make that includes water can glow with tonic water. Like Jello for example:
My kids thought that glowing jello was pretty much the coolest thing ever.
Now tonic water does have a nasty bitter taste to it. My kids actually didn’t notice at all, which I thought was strange. Maybe I’m just super sensitive. I don’t like the flavor, so if you’re like me know that you only need a little to make it glow. Adding a bit to juice or punch isn’t very noticeable. And if you do jello, you can use part regular water (half and half, or even less tonic) to minimize the bitter taste. And if you were wondering, YES you can even use tonic water to make glowing gak!
Think of other creative uses and gather stuff on your kitchen table. Turn down the lights, flip on a black light, and watch your kids ooh and ahhh as they sip glow in the dark juice and chomp down radioactive jello.
We have an issue in our house with sippy cups. Every morning I give my boys a lidded cup with milk and every afternoon I find those cups somewhere in the house. It’s not so old that it’s reached the nasty curdled stage (all you Mom’s know what I’m talking about- right??) but it’s old enough that I don’t want my kids drinking it anymore. I hate watching it go down the drain, so lately we’ve been using it for play time. My sister in law Emily told me about this one and I vaguely remember doing it as a kid too!
Place milk in a shallow dish and add some drops of liquid food coloring.
Now grab a *magic* toothpick. What? You don’t know where to buy magic toothpicks?? Just dip the end in dish soap 🙂
and let your kiddo touch the milk with it.
The colors instantly shoot out at lightning speed creating a wake of rainbows! Try dipping the toothpick in the color first and then the milk and you’ll make rings.
Do it a few more times and then just sit back and watch. As the soap disrupts the surface tension of the milk, the colors dance around all by themselves. Kind of like a funky kaleidoscope.
Until of course, seconds later your kids can’t contain themselves and they stir it all around making a cloudy brown mess. Not that I know from experience…
All you need is a kiddie pool, a hoola hoop, some water, and a bunch of dish soap. And then you can have human sized bubbles. My boys thought this was SO cool (and so did I!)
Questions & Reviews
Hi Sara
How are you
I want to know that how should get the glowing light like neon in the food products So please suggest me how to use this and any recipe
Can u move when your inside the bubble without it popping?
I love the glowing jello – I’m planning a glow in the dark Halloween party for my son and this will be perfect.
How much tonic water do you have to add to the drink to make it glow?
I loved the magic milk colors idea. I tried it with my kids, they loved it! Thank you so much for sharing! Here are some pics and videos: http://www.teachingsmartypants.com/2012/08/14/best-of-pinterest-colorful-flowers-exploding-soap-rainbow-milk-and-domino-parking/
Trying to find a recipe or a “how to” glow in the dark cookies. Is that possible??
I can’t think of any way that would be possible- or at least possible and edible! Sorry!
Booyah! I’m doing a project for social studies and this just helped me out a lot
What great ideas! Thank you!!!! My kids are gonna love the glow in the dark jello! Can’t wait to try it! And the glow in the dark drinks will be the spotlight for adult parties ! YES!
I can’t wait to try it with the kids…Thank you.
Hi Sara! We loved your glow in the dark beverages/jello and featured your idea on our blog, MPM School Supplies Blog!
You can find the full feature here:
http://blog.mpmschoolsupplies.com/3616/the-things-that-glow-extra-special-v-day-ideas/
We were sure to give idea/photo credit, as well as a link back to your blog, but we’d love for you to check it out! If there are any problems, we’ll be certain to take the feature down immediately!
Thanks so much,
Kayla Johnson
tristro.com/kayla
What FABULOUS ideas! We can’t wait to try them out!
this is great! i am in charge of finding food for the dance (glow in the dark themed) and this is perfect!!!
Oh my good gracious glowing food. I wish my parents had known this when I was a kid. I must spread the word!!
I love it I love it! The glowing food and drink is fantastic. Especially for Halloween. I can’t wait to play with this idea for my party. Thank you for such a fun site. I enjoyed reading.
If you had some water-colour paper handy, laying it on the surface *before* the kids mix it to a muddy brown, you’d have a gorgeous picture.
Hi there! I discovered your blog via Pinterest and just posted about doing the magic milk rainbows – my children had SOOO much fun with this, so a great, big THANK YOU for the lovely idea!
Thank you for the info about tonic water..who knew?! I can’t wait to try it out myself!
You give the BEST ideas! Thank you so very much for sharing.
you need the tonic water with quinine to glow in the dark
What a fun project!! Can’t wait to try this with my boys! I loved this so much I shared your page on my blog: http://our-scott-spot.blogspot.com/2011/07/fun-find-friday-family-activities.html
THAT LOOK GOOD FOR THE KIDDS
that is cooooooooooooollllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my gosh, this is AWESOME!!! We're throwing a black light party for our teens this weekend and this is PERFECT!!! Thanks so much, ladies, once again, for your fabulous ideas! LOVE this blog! <3
Tried the tonic on a trial run tonight before our big Halloween party Friday night. Bought name brand tonic and a $5 GE blacklight from Target, but it isn't working for us. Maybe I'll have to try the energy saver one mentioned earlier… Otherwise I'm turning to dry ice!!
I just published my "glowing" drinks thinking I was so creative then found out that you had already done these a MONTH ago! I added a link to you in my post & love the jell-o jigglers idea.:)
All great things… however I have to say my fav part was Kate hating the word Beverage! My sister HATES the word biscuit (she hates the way scuit is spelled) and peruse so that part of the post just made me laugh. I love tormenting her with those words!!!
I am so buying a bottle of tonic water to try this. I had no idea! Thanks for sharing.
Jessica, you can do colored drinks and they'll still glow. They kind of all turn out differently depending on how it reacts with the blue tint of the light.