Personalized Banners, say it the way you want!

Whenever a birthday comes around I find that there are two types of banners:

1. Plain old "Happy Birthday" and,
   
2. The overused classic "Over the Hill"

But what if you wanted to say "Hey Brian it's just a number like Uncle Mike always said", or "Jen at least you're always going to be 5 years older then me!" Or some other crazy personalized message. That's where our Personalized Banners make all the difference.

At your local party store or grocery center you're pretty much limited to the first two, with no way to say what you want unless you buy poster board and are REALLY artistic.

But now at Windy City Novelties you can choose from hundreds of pre-themed banners where you can put the exact message you want to convey. Among the most popular are themed banners for: Disco , Birthdays , and Patriotic

"Support our Troops", "Elect Steven Colbert", or even "Welcome home Jim, we've missed you!" And the best thing is that they're printed on high quality vinyl, so they can be used once and kept as a keep sake or used hundreds of times over.

We even now make Personalized Door Banners so your guests can be greeted with the message as they enter the party.

Lighted drink ware, turn any social gathering into a Glowing event!

Drinks are always a great way to spice up a party, and that doesn't mean that you have to have alcohol in them. Lighted drink ware makes any drink can be fun, from normal water or soda to the more exotic fruity drinks. What makes them great and entertaining is the presentation.

Now if we were back 50 years ago I'd say put an umbrella or a artistic piece of fruit in the glass... But not anymore, now we have Illuminated Cups, Glowing Stemware, Glowing Liquid Filled Cups, And Even LED Ice Cubes and GLOW Ice cubes.

And don't think that glowing cups are only good for the more festive parties, we have black tie appropriate stemware that tastefully illuminates your drink while still being true to the high class event you're hosting. In fact with these glasses you can choose what color you want the glass to be in: Red, Green, Blue, Teal, Pink, Orange, All colors at once, or a rotation of colors



But thats only one type of our lighted drink ware. Look below to see our Glow cup options:



To see our full line of illuminated drink ware click here

Lumi-loon ®, lighted balloons with one way air valves

Balloons are great for decorations, they look awesome and can continue any color theme nicely. But what happens when its an evening event or in a dark environment? Obviously you loose most, if not all, of the allure that balloons have.

But that doesn't have to be the case. Our NEW patented Lumi-Loons allow you to enjoy the beauty that balloons have right into the night. Besides illuminating the balloon the device comes pre-attached to the balloon and creates a one way air tight valve where you can fill it up with helium without having to try and tie the neck of the balloon. Simply inflate and let it fly (see our youtube video for a demonstration)

The Light has three different settings, Fast Blink, Slow Blink and Steady. (okay 4 if you count off as a setting smart alec), again visit the youtube video (by clicking on 'youtube') to see a full demonstration of the settings and applications

Two different options exist with this great invention.

1. You use a White balloon with colored LED's
2. You use a Colored balloon with White LED's

Both look awesome and give completely different effects. You can even choose balloons that are printed so that when they light up the image POPS!

How does a glow stick work, Chemiluminescence

Making your own glowstick is difficult and time consuming, and quite honestly all your hardwork will be used up in a few hours of glow. Instead I recommend purchasing your glow from Windy City Novelties. We use the highest quality products around to make sure you get a nice bright glow!

I get this question all the time: How does a glow stick work? Now depending on the age of the person asking I have several different answers.
1. (to a young child) A glow stick works by magic, and it will stay lit till you go to sleep.

2. (to a teenager or curious adult) A glow stick works by a chemical reaction, when you break the ampule inside the stick it mixes two compounds to form the affect of glow until the reaction is finished.

But I'm going to guess that if you're here then you want to really know how a glow stick works... So here is my answer to the do-it-yourselfers out there, and those that really need to know hos stuff works.

CAVEAT: I am not a chemist, with that if there are words that I find too cumbersome to either easily explain or understand by there own then I will link them to a wikipedia page with their definition.

Glow sticks give off illumination as a by product of a chemical reaction called chemiluminescence (light from chemical reaction in difficult language). This is achieved by the mixing of two liquids that alone are uninteresting.

The free flowing chemical inside the plastic tube is a combination of a dye for coloring (usually either a sensitizer or a fluorophor) and what has been called Cyalume which is also known as Bis(2,4,5-trichlorophenyl-6-carbopentoxyphenyl) oxalate (CPPO) which is a solid ester where the oxidation products are what causes the chemiluminescence (glow) in a glow stick.

If you're adventurous and want to try to make it yourself it can be done by reacting 2-carbopentoxy-3,5,6-trichlorophenol with oxalyl chloride.

The liquid in the capsule inside the plastic housing of the glow stick is Hydrogen Peroxide. Same stuff that you get from Walgreens or CVS. If you've ever noticed how it bubbles on contact then you'll understand why its the activating agent. When it mixes with the Cyalume it releases an Oxygen molecule that quickly forms Carbon Dioxide which in turn releases enough energy in the new bonds being broken and formed to excite the electrons in the dyes causing what you see as Glow. When the glow extinguishes you know that the chemical reaction is finished and that the dye has released enough photons (energy in the form of light) to be stable.



In true scientific terms the reaction is best described by Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., who wrote on About.com :

"Specifically, the chemical reaction works like this: The hydrogen peroxide oxidizes the phenyl oxalate ester, to form phenol and an unstable peroxyacid ester. The unstable peroxyacid ester decomposes, resulting in phenol and a cyclic peroxy compound. The cyclic peroxy compound decomposes to carbon dioxide. This decomposition reaction releases the energy that excites the dye."

It should be noted that while different dyes cause the different colors, some chemical formulations are actually patented. Most importantly is the Red dye formulation, which is used in several different colored glow. If you've ever seen a red dyed plastic tubing being used to get a red glow stick then you know that you are not buying from the patent holders or one of their licensees.

This posting has been made possible by the help of information obtained from the following references:

http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/a/howlightsticks.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glow_stick
http://www.howstuffworks.com/light-stick.htm
as viewed on 6/11/08 at 11:02 AM

Fiber Optic Centerpieces

Okay, so complete honesty here.  I thought these Fiber Optic Centerpieces were pretty cool when started selling them some time back.  I started to really like them when my wife used them to decorate my recent birthday party (no gifts please, but thank you for the thought).  And I loved them when my uncle used them for his daughters party this past weekend in an upscale restaurant that had the lights just slightly dimmed.

They truly make any event look like it cost a million dollars, while costing only a few dollars each!

Fiber Optic Centerpieces stand 13" tall and can change colors or BE SET TO A SINGLE COLOR.  Your theme Red? No problem! Blue? Just as easy!  Rainbow color? well guess what, it can phase through the colors too.  They run on 3 AAA batteries, which are replaceable, so you can keep this great looking centerpiece, or night light, for as long as you'd like.  The LEDs will almost never die so you don't have to worry about being frugal with their use.

Yea I'm including a photo, look up and to the right, and yea I have a youtube clip to show you (down below).  But none of that compares to seeing them in person.  For a close second I'm going to ask my uncle to share some of his impressively high quality photos with us all here.  Check back soon to see. 

Different type of Glow Bracelets, and Necklaces

Believe it or not there are many different types of glow bracelets and glow necklaces.  The main differences here are the thickness and length of the tubing.  Generally thicker tubing carries more "glow juice" more juice means a brighter glow with better coloring.

Its like painting a deck or a house, the first coat is nice but the color really starts to show with more coats, here with more glow juice.

There is no question that thicker glow is better.  Besides glowing brighter it also lasts longer since there's more chemical to go through.  To get an idea at the differences take a look at the picture below it shows the different thicknesses and what they look like

At our company alone we have two different types of Glow Necklaces, Superior Glow (at 5mm) and Premium Glow (at 6mm)

In Glow Bracelets we have Superior Glow, Premium Glow and Deluxe Triple Wide Glow (a huge 15mm wide).  Now for most simple occasions Superior Glow is fine and dandy.  You'll get good coloring, bright glow, and it will last for about 6 hours.  Premium Glow will be brighter, and will last 8 hours or more.  Also with Premium Glow you'll get a high end molded plastic connector that is UV reactive and cool on its own.  But the best and brightest glow is the Triple Wide.  Just as in the photo above it is CONSIDERABLY larger and brighter.  The color obviously looks the best in this piece because of the glow size itself. 

To get a better view of this watch the youtube video below that demonstrates the glow of the Deluxe Triple Wide. 

Always be wary of other companies that try to claim they have the cheapest glow.  Make sure to ask what the diameter of the necklace or bracelet is!  If they respond that they don't know then BE WARY!  Also its not unusual to see 4mm or even 3mm glow out there, this will not last long nor look as good as even our Superior Glow at 5mm after 2 hours of GLOW!