r/MadeMeSmile • u/Firm-Blackberry-9162 • Aug 17 '26
Wholesome Moments Stars shining bright above you!
By @ aerol_peterson
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u/SingBlooSilver Aug 17 '26
When I was in elementary school, my mom set these stars up while my brother and I were in class. She said NOTHING. That night, our parents turned out the lights in our rooms at the same time. I haven't been so pleasantly surprised since!
Magical core memory. Thanks mom!
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u/xTechDeath Aug 17 '26
My older brother stole 2 packs of them from a grocery store and gave them to me, not as wholesome as your story but thanks bro
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u/ChakaCake Aug 17 '26
I put these up in my room as a teen..then did ecstasy..so cute!
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u/Boil-Degs Aug 18 '26
I bet you fell in love with the universe and wondered why we fight wars with each other when we share the stars in the night sky
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u/No_Net4683 Aug 18 '26
yh I painted a bunch of these on my ceiling and then we white boxed my room it made the stars look like they were rippling was trippy
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u/smeeon Aug 18 '26
I spent all afternoon sticking them to my wooden ceiling, no drugs but I was very proud of myself and enjoyed them for many years.
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u/plain_name Aug 18 '26
In the 90s, we had these black light, posters and bottles of st ides special brew filled with highlighters and water. We would all turn on the black lights and do some shrooms.
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u/Klinky1984 Aug 18 '26
Your bro was willing commit space crime to give you the universe, that's a true bro.
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u/AxelNotRose Aug 18 '26
Nice. I stuck them on myself in my room and I still remember years later when we were selling the house, the painter swearing under his breath when trying to remove them to prep the house.
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u/awl_the_lawls Aug 18 '26
I had them too but our ceilings were stucco so they never quite actually stuck fully. Sometimes there'd be a "shooting star" which was of course just one falling from the ceiling! Good times!
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u/NoBabouThtWasSarcasm Aug 17 '26
Ok this is an amazing idea thank you SingBlooSilver’s mom!
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u/SingBlooSilver Aug 17 '26
I sent her a screengrab of your comment! She really is a great mom
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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 Aug 18 '26
I hope you included yours so she can see how much you appreciate her
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u/Gotforgot Aug 18 '26
I put the tiny ones on the interior roof of my first car. I haven't thought about that in decades and now I want to do it again.
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u/OhYesTheBees Aug 18 '26
That's an awesome idea, I'm gonna do that. Thanks for sharing!
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u/tstein26 Aug 17 '26
Tell your mom that I’m going to steal her idea for my 6 & 7 year old kiddos!
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u/RedHickorysticks Aug 18 '26
Our mom planted pansies while we were at school (normally she would be at work). When we got home and were surprised, she told us the Spring Flower Fairy came. The Spring Flower Fairy was also responsible for the perennials that would pop up (daffodils and grape hyacinth).
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u/kit_kat_barcalounger Aug 18 '26
I put these up in my room when I was a kid. I remember my dad coming to tuck me in one of the first nights I had them and looking up at the ceiling and saying something along the lines of “wow, it really makes you think about just how small we are in the universe. Welp, goodnight!”
Thanks for the sleepless night, dad.
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u/Internal_Discourse Aug 17 '26
Those kids sound like they aren't sleeping anytime soon 😂
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u/TotoShampoin Aug 17 '26
Long enough for these stars to dim
I remember when I used to have those on my ceiling. I also had sheeps.
When I couldn't sleep, my mom told me to "count the sheeps". Being the first time I heard of that, I counted the sheeps I could see.
Then I'd go back to tell her "There are 7 of them"777
u/Max_W_ Aug 17 '26
That cracked me up. I hope this is a story your family shares often ...
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u/TotoShampoin Aug 17 '26
It's not
Somehow, I think my mom never caught up to what I meant
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Aug 17 '26
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u/TotoShampoin Aug 17 '26
I could see myself counting the story back to my mom, and whether she'd remember or not, I'm sure she'd laugh at how typically me that story is
Love my mom
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u/rhapsodypenguin Aug 18 '26
I have aphantasia, meaning I have no voluntary mental visualization. I thought the phrase “counting sheep” was a metaphor for boring yourself to sleep, I had no idea until I was in my 40s and learned that most people can visualize in their mind’s eye that it had more literal intent.
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u/aprf_ Aug 18 '26
I have aphantasia too, but-
Recently I heard that "counting sheep" doesn't involve literal sheep at all. It just means you pick a topic you know a lot about, and just start going down a rabbit hole in your mind. It keeps your brain doing something familiar so it can calm down enough to sleep, apparently.
Idk. I just read on my phone until I'm so exhausted I can't keep my eyes open. Don't take it from me
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u/rhapsodypenguin Aug 18 '26
While it’s possible that is one interpretation of the phrase, there is no question that “literal” sheep counting is a thing.
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u/aprf_ Aug 18 '26
...Huh. The more you know.
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u/motleyai Aug 18 '26
Yeah, I would literally count sheep as a kid. It suppose to bore the kid to sleep. Always did the opposite for me, I would start to fixate on counting and my brain got more active the more I counted. Always felt bad because by hour 3 I probably was more restless than when I started and mom had clearly fallen asleep.
I wonder if that's a sign I have some underlying ADHD or OCD.
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u/Choco_cake17 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
That's the most adorable thing I've read. The pure innocence...
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u/showraniy Aug 17 '26
That's funny and I can't believe your mom never caught on. 😂 Would she send you back to bed to count them again?
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u/TotoShampoin Aug 17 '26
I think that's what happened, yeah
I kinda remember feeling stuck staring at the same 7 sheeps, confused as to what I'm supposed to do
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u/AlarmingAffect0 Aug 18 '26
When I couldn't sleep, my mom told me to "count the sheeps". Being the first time I heard of that, I counted the sheeps I could see.
Then I'd go back to tell her "There are 7 of them"
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u/Dreaming_Kitsune Aug 18 '26
I had star wars ones as a kid, I remember pulling them off when I had a bunk bed because I liked fucking with things lol
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u/honeybadgerrulez Aug 17 '26
i don’t have kids but i’ve heard dads are great at rustling up kids right before their bedtime
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u/Inevitable-Ad6647 Aug 18 '26
Dad here. Confirmed, it's like a reflex. Kiddo is chill and putting on pajamas? That's exactly when the dad monster attacks with tickles and wrastlen! Or worse yet kiddo knows ice cream is Dad's Achilles heel and asks to eat some and watch music videos together. I ain't saying no to that any night.
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u/b_ambie Aug 18 '26
Pro tip: Always accept the ice cream and music videos time, and use it to educate them on actual good music going back decades.
Signed, the little girl who used to wake up in the middle of the night and wander to the living room where my dad was always up late and would do that exact same thing with me.
Never pass it up... it doesn't last forever. But knowing good music, and the memories attached to it, never goes away.
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u/Street-Economist9751 Aug 18 '26
Some of my favorite childhood memories probably involved my poor mom being very exasperated off on the side somewhere.
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Aug 18 '26
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u/punkindle Aug 18 '26
Yes. bright lights will shut off any melatonin production in the brain. It's going to be a long time before they get to sleep
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u/Vishnuisgod Aug 18 '26
Is that what it is???
Im looking for something just like that.....for reasons...
Help a brotha out?
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u/jarednards Aug 18 '26
Of course they arent. They just got launched into space. I'm surprised theyre still breathing.
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u/Dumptruck_Johnson Aug 18 '26
You don’t pull out a 6 foot flashlight as bright as the sun and expect the kids to just fall asleep, Carl
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u/cortesoft Aug 18 '26
Depends on the kid. My daughter would take forever to sleep if she gets riled up before bed, but my son will go from bouncing off the walls to asleep in seconds. Roughhousing with him is actually a good way to get him to sleep.
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u/int0this Aug 17 '26
Use UV light that will do wonders
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u/Twinchad Aug 17 '26
Black lights are like super chargers for glow in the dark
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u/Famous-Leopard-118 Aug 18 '26
can confirm, I use a lot of UV and Glow paint in my arts.
very fun medium.
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u/Mydemonswon Aug 17 '26
Oh will it? My daughter has these. Time to try it.
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u/Mmmm-Amethyst Aug 18 '26
If you don't feel like messing with a full-sized black light, they make UV flashlights for pet urine detection / scorpion hunting that are powerful and directed to get that extra oomph when you charge something glow in the dark.
Protip: those are also great for finding hornworm caterpillars in your garden.
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u/TheDrunkWickerbeast Aug 18 '26
Bought one of those flashlights then spent the next two days deep cleaning my entire house so also great at grossing you out enough to be super productive lol
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u/ruat_caelum Aug 18 '26
lol that's what I was thinking. Don't use that you are going to see stuff you don't want. And not in a hotel like way, just a sort of, "wtf? How did I stain the wall there? and there? and there?"
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u/TheTyrianKnight Aug 18 '26
Scorpions and Caterpillars? I get the finding bodily fluids thing, but how does it help detect arthropods? Bodily fluids in a different way or is it different for arthropods?
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u/IndividualFun1892 Aug 18 '26
Never googled but scorpions glow in black light. Always good to check your yard for them with a black light if you live where they are.
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u/TheTyrianKnight Aug 18 '26
Oh I see. I live in a relatively cold climate so I never really have to worry about scorpions (Which is probably why I didn’t know that, lol.)
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u/Mmmm-Amethyst Aug 18 '26
They glow under UV light. Really nothing more to it than that.
I can't personally attest to scorpion hunting, but a green hornworm caterpillar that's basically invisible against a tomato plant under sunlight is much easier to find at night under UV.
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u/chaoticinfinity Aug 17 '26
I bought a UV light flashlight off Amazon to do UV glow art with...ended up giving it to the kiddo so he can charge his stars up. It's almost instant. We covered his ceiling in the variable dots, made constellations and stuff.
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u/bqm11 Aug 18 '26
be very careful you can super easily cause permanent eye damage with UV flashlights. Ideally you always want to wear polycarbonate eye protection.
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u/bqm11 Aug 18 '26
For anyone trying this please be careful!!!! The 365nm UV flashlights online are super powerful and can easily cause permanent eye damage. You should always wear polycarbonate or similar eye protection when operating ones of these lights. They are not toys
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u/GitEmSteveDave Aug 18 '26
My first thought. Some low powered UV LED strips shining up could do an amazing job charging those GID things and also not really interfere with their night vision. Plus you can do things like uv reactive facepaint.
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u/Carbon-Base Aug 17 '26
Same! Those glow-in-the-dark stars are gonna look great on DeWalted ceiling.
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u/Veritas413 Aug 17 '26
I mean. You can just do that. Who’s gonna stop you? Also, if you get a blacklight flashlight you can charge them in the basically dark.
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u/DeaconLogan Aug 18 '26
I did that. I'm 49, and I regret nothing.
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u/happygoluckyourself Aug 18 '26
We got a star projector for our bedroom and me (34) and my husband (40) love it so much
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u/Used-Fruits Aug 18 '26
Girl, get you a canopy with the glow in the dark stars!!
My 3 year old tells everyone she lives in a castle in the stars.
$18 on Amazon.
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u/saw89 Aug 18 '26
My wife and I are 37 & 36. We have glowing stars on our ceiling. Sometimes I’ll pull out the black light from Halloween to really get them to shine
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u/RandomUser5453 Aug 17 '26
I felt their joy!
Been there. Those stars are so cool!
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u/Ucscprickler Aug 18 '26
I put stars like this up in my room when I was a teenager. Always a great novelty.
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Aug 17 '26
What in the DeWalt is that? Retractable light?
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u/Negative_Brilliant86 Aug 17 '26
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u/ItRossYaBish Aug 17 '26
Depending on the lifespan of the battery, that could be very worth it to anyone with outdoor work or hobbies. Expensive is all relative when it comes to tools lol
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u/sweetangeldivine Aug 17 '26
if you have a few batteries and a good recharger then it's all gravy
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u/AspiringTS Aug 17 '26
If you have DeWalt, you probably do. Many of my tools came free when buying a battery or vice versa.
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u/ItRossYaBish Aug 17 '26
Very true! I finally got a second battery and charger for my yard care equipment and it was a game changer. Crazy that the spare battery and charger combo cost me more than the weed wacker did though lol
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u/kbarnett514 Aug 18 '26
I work for a production company that does lighting for events, including many in tents that we sometimes have to strike late at night after the party is over. We have a couple of these big battery powered work lights and they are a godsend.
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u/HwangLiang Aug 18 '26
So standard contractor gear haha
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u/Famine07 Aug 18 '26
People's heads would explode if they saw what some tools cost outside of the standard stuff homeowners also use. Milwaukee makes a battery powered UniStrut cutter that's $3000, a $250 jobsite light like this ain't too bad.
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u/Vehry_Nice Aug 17 '26
I think black light / UV light also works really well for charging up these stars.
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u/feelin_cheesy Aug 17 '26
Works better than a regular bright light and has the added coolness of not making the room bright at bedtime. Looks like magic as the stars start glowing.
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u/wallysmith127 Aug 18 '26
We got portable UV lights for specifically this purpose and they charge those stars up QUICK
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u/hurtfulproduct Aug 18 '26
Yes!
Like a $15 UV lamp from Amazon will charge the whole ceiling in like 30 seconds and last for like 15 min.
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u/ni_hao_butches Aug 17 '26
How else are you going to get the Covid out of your body?
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u/xxzincxx Aug 17 '26
I would love this still as an adult.
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u/PonqueRamo Aug 17 '26
I'm 40 and I still have glowing stars in my wall, I bought them a few years ago on Amazon, I guess they still sell them.
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u/Academic-Increase951 Aug 18 '26
I put them in my kids room. They are too young to really care yet so was more fore myself.
Spent far too long putting the stars up forming the constellations. Some day when they start learning consolations they might realize they have them on their ceilings and that's it's not just random
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u/Ducatirules Aug 17 '26
When they grow up they will say “hey, do you remember when Dad would light up the stars every night for ten years!”
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u/ajnin919 Aug 17 '26
A blacklight would make this significantly faster
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u/nalaloveslumpy Aug 18 '26
You can get blacklight LED strips now and stick them up all around the top of the wall at the ceiling with some diffuser strips and those stars will glow forever.
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u/Raspbers Aug 17 '26
I'm so happy to see the glow in the dark stars and planets are still gracing the ceilings of kid's bedrooms these days. <3
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u/Enough-Gap-8906 Aug 17 '26
Night breezes seem to whisper, I love you. Say nighty-night.
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u/einTier Aug 18 '26
Birds singin' in the sycamore tree
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u/Brownlove010_Real Aug 18 '26
I had a fascination with space as a kid and my dad and I painted the walls a dark blue with little planets and clouds and had the glow in the dark stickers on the ceiling. Well, 20 some odd years later, the house got renovated and the painted walls were gone. I stayed in my old room. Turned out the lights to go to bed and the little glowing stars met me and I was a smiling idiot.
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u/jasebox Aug 18 '26
My mom hand-painted an astrological accurate sky in my room as a kid. It was straight out of Harry Potter.
Best Mom ever :)
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u/NopeRope13 Aug 18 '26
This is the moment we wish for as parents.
It’s the epic glowing random constellations!!!
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u/TheFilthy13 Aug 17 '26
My kids have these. I do this with the torch on my phone so maybe not as effective; they dim after a few minutes but it’s worth it for the initial reaction and them thinking I’m a cool dad.
NOW GET THE FUCK TO SLEEP!!!
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u/AltruisticRent4375 Aug 17 '26
This is what I'll show my wife next tool purchase! See, it has multiple applications, babe.
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u/asmj Aug 18 '26
I just wished all the kids in the world have a chance to see a stary night sky without light pollution.
It is so humbling, and it instills the kinship with others in your life, because we are all so tiny under the stars' gazes.
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u/RocktarPeppe Aug 18 '26
When I was a kid, I had these on my ceiling fan for years. One night, my friends and I had a pillow fight in the dark. Someone clipped the ceiling fan that was set to High just enough to cause the stars to progressively separate of the fan blades. Lots of shooting stars that night.
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u/engli101 Aug 18 '26
We moved into a new place and were sleeping in a main floor bedroom while we finished moving in. We turned the lights off the first night and were surprised by these same stars on the ceiling—the previous owners had left them up. I felt like a kid again. Never taking those down.
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u/ElwoodFenris27 Aug 18 '26
As an adult i have stars on my ceiling i put them up in my 20s 😂 and now im in my 30s, my brother said im childish but i like a starry sky and jts something to look at when i cant sleep, i also have a projector ( which my brother and my mother then bought their own).
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u/Otherwise-Print-6210 Aug 17 '26
Glow in the dark paint is better, more stars, and it’s easy to make the Milky Way. Still going after 20 years.
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u/2020mademejoinreddit Aug 18 '26
I wish I had this when I was young. I'm gonna make this for myself as an adult now.
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u/Lonely-Selection6780 Aug 18 '26
Lol remember myself sticking them on ceiling when I was 8 or 9 years old. Some of them fell off to get stick on my blanket. 😂 It was a cool experience.
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u/doiwinaprize Aug 17 '26
I had a massive collection of these and put them ALL over my room, like floors, walls and ceiling. Bedposts and dresser.
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u/JokeMe-Daddy Aug 18 '26
Same here! My brother got me a bunch for Christmas and I went HAM on the walls and doors. When he asked why none were on the ceiling, I showed him how I couldn't reach the ceiling even whilst jumping on the bed.
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u/jonasu25 Aug 17 '26
As a father of four (mine are 18yrs and +now) I miss these moments 😭💔😭😭💔😭
I wish we recorded things like this! Just the small moments are the biggest ones I miss! Thank you for sharing
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u/ParanoidMaron Aug 17 '26
My service dog has a glow in the dark ball. It's his favorite toy. He chooses that one over any other toy, and is visibly upset when it does not glow. I have a big black bright as fuck flashlight that I use to power it up before I throw it for him.
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u/FlummoxedGaoler Aug 18 '26
My mom would read me Narnia, and then I’d have this above my bed and think about the books until I fell asleep. Pure magic. I wonder if I could get some on the ceiling without my wife noticing…
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u/zoinkability Aug 18 '26
If you are ever in northern Wisconsin, go out of your way to check out the Kovac Planetarium.
It's basically this but taken to an absurd level, the world's largest mechanical planetarium, that the guy behind it painted with glow in the dark paint to put every single visible star in the sky on the inside of the rotating sphere you sit inside. Iit was the work of just one guy, a worker at the local paper plant, who built it himself from scratch and runs the shows. Absolutely amazing.
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u/Green_Chandelier Aug 18 '26
🥹May every child have a caring adult in their life who can show them beauty and magic.
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u/pinner Aug 18 '26
My husband and I ended up (emphasis on ended up) at a random ass no name hotel in the middle of Virginia somewhere a few years ago. It was a sketchy as hell place off the highway but it was like 2 AM, we had three dogs with us and needed a place to stay.
We were in our room getting ready for bed, turned off the lights and lo and behold, someone had used glow in the dark paint and made an entire night sky in that room. I don’t know if the proprietors even knew it was there. It was completely invisible if the lights were on.
As much as that place was creepy, the starts were a welcomed and hilarious sight. I felt just like these kids at 38 or so. Haha. 🤣
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u/Bentendo64- Aug 18 '26
I remember when I was but a boy, I had a little plastic turtle that had a kind of the same thing, it would show stars and moons, it would glow up onto my ceiling
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u/Silphire100 Aug 18 '26
I had these! Had them set up like acrual constellations coz I liked space a lot when I was a kid
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u/zoeloofus Aug 18 '26
This just gave me such a happy memory of my dad lying on the bed with me and my brother, looking up at the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, and telling us stories of our adventures through the galaxy. It was so awesome and so vividly imaginative. I haven’t thought about it in a long time. Thank you for the gift of this memory ❤️
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u/1018Looking Aug 18 '26
These children are blessed with a loving, fun and involved father. What a wonderful life.
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u/hennabeak Aug 18 '26
I did this for my kid but the stars were somewhat accurate constellations, made from memory.
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u/DumbFishBrain Aug 18 '26
That's a dad who really knows how to be an excellent father. He reminds of my own dearly departed father, who would do seemingly trivial things just like that to make us kids happier.
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u/sbonedocd Aug 18 '26
My friend had these in her childhood bedroom and never took them down. In our twenties, I’d spend the night after drinking. These weren’t great to have when the ceiling was spinning.
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u/Humble-Questions Aug 18 '26
Seems to me like the light in the stars comes from Daddy's heart :) way to go bud
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u/needmoarbass Aug 17 '26
Omg I still think these are cool!! I change my LED light in the hallway to light blue to charge mine. I use my phone to turn it on/off. No kids here lol.
And bonus points if you put a couple on the ceiling fan. So sick.
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u/PurplePikaPanda Aug 17 '26
Can someone explain what the dad did so I can do it in my room?
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u/One-Bad-4274 Aug 17 '26
There are stick on glow in the dark stars you can buy, the dad used a big ass flashlight to power up the luminescent of the glow in the dark starts as ther require some light to glow in the first place
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u/SmuckatelliCupcakeNE Aug 17 '26
They need to be in the light for alittle bit in order to glow in the dark.
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u/Hot-Cauliflower-1604 Aug 18 '26
That is the coolest s*** ever and it really makes me miss my dad not going to lie.
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u/GreatRise47 Aug 18 '26
The fact his laugh blended in right with theirs shows how much he loves being a dad ❤️
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u/Freak_Out_Bazaar Aug 18 '26
I had these in my room. My dad made sure that it was astronomically correct as well
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u/dudeman618 Aug 18 '26
I did that in my son's room. I found glow in the dark fabric paint at Michaels and put little dots all over and made a few constellations as well.
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u/bloodxandxrank Aug 18 '26
fun story, my sister thought it would super awesome to put these on her ceiling fan. of course she was right, but when she turned her fan up a notch she created actual shooting stars. it sounded like a rock tumbler from the other room. scared the hell out of everyone
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u/Evening-Campaign4547 Aug 18 '26
Dad… you are more than a star! You are a constellation!!!
Wonderful dad this kid has!!
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