DIY Balloon Garland Tutorial
A big balloon garland or balloon arch may seem daunting & like way too much work, but I promise you, it’s easy! I’ve made tons in the past & won’t stop any time soon. In this post I’m going to lay out every single thing you need to do, to have a perfect balloon garland EVERY TIME! I learned how to do this years ago by my talented from Hailey & have made them myself ever since!
Color Scheme
The first thing you need to do, is choose what colors you are going to want your balloons to be. If my party doesn’t already have a theme with specific colors, then I turn to Pinterest! There are so many talented people on Pinterest that have made balloon garlands fo you to pull inspiration from! Find one that you love & we’ll base your’s off of it!
Picking Balloons
Now we need to actually buy our balloons. There are plenty of places that sell balloons, but my personal favorite place to get them is Party City. I like them solely because of the selection they carry, and that I can order them online & just pick them up at the store! The key to a good balloon garland that doesn’t look homemade is using a variety of sizes! Depending on how big you are making it, you can use balloons from 36” all the way down to 5”. For this garland, it was about 10 feet long and the biggest I used was 12”. But when I do really large garlands, I get the huge balloons! Look at your inspiration photo and decide what colors you want to get, and which ones you want to be smaller, and which ones larger. At the end of this post, I’ll list out exactly which balloons I got & how many of them went into the garland.
Supplies
Now that you’ve got your balloons, it’s time to get everything else ready. You’re going to want your balloons, fishing line( I used 8 lb weight), scissors, a thick needle, painters tape(or small Command Hooks to attach it to the wall), and a balloon pump(totally optional, but trust me, you’ll want it). That’s it! And once you have most of it, you can make tons of garlands before having to buy more!
Blowing Them Up
Now the time consuming part, blowing up all of the balloons. I start one bag at a time & blow up a bunch of each & tie them off. I don’t usually finish off each bag, just grab a handful and then move onto the next. We can always blow up more at the end if we need to. This goes a lot faster if you have someone you can hand off the balloons to to tie for you.
Stringing Them
Time to make this garland! Tie your fishing line to your needle and then start stringing balloons onto it, pushing them down the line pretty far. About as far as you want your garland long. Alternate between sizes and colors as you go, mixing it up really well. Make sure to scrunch your balloons together towards the end. This makes for a full garland that doesn’t have gaps. Once you finish off all the balloons you blew up, look at the size of the garland & decide if you need to blow up any more balloons to add to it. When you are happy with the length, tie a knot around the first and last balloon with your fishing line, making sure it is secure & cut it from the spool.
Hanging
This part can be easy or hard depending on where you are hanging it and how much help you have. I did this one on my own with a step stool, but large ones will probably require a little assistance. Take your painters tape & find a gap in the balloons where you can see the fishing line, take your tape & tape the fishing line directly to the wall. You may have to do a couple layers of tape to make sure the lines doesn’t cut through it. Do this every couple feet until your garland is secure. Another way of doing this is getting the little Command Hooks and attaching them to the wall. Then hooking the fishing line around them. If you are putting it up in a location where you will often be hanging a balloon garland, then you might just want to go this rout & leave the hooks so you don’t have to worry about it any more! Take a step back & see if there’s any spots that need attached & do that.
Adjusting
Now the final touches! Look at the whole garland from a ways back and see if there’s any balloons that need moved around. Sometimes you’ll see a clump of one color, or a spot where it’s missing a color. If you mixed them up well while you strung them, then you can just find the balloons that you want moved and switch it with another next to it. If there’s any gaps where you want to add balloons, you can! Just take another balloon in the color/size that you want & use double sided tape or a glue dot to stick it to the other balloons. Another option is to tie the fishing line around it and then tie that to the main line to hold it on.
Then watch your family & friends ooh & aah over your mad balloon skills! And make sure to take some photos to document it! If you make a balloon arch or balloon garland, please tag me on Instagram @morgantaylerathome ! I would LOVE to see what you create!!
Happy Balloon Garland Making!
Balloons I Used:
Clear 12”: 5
Clear 5”: 8
Yellow 12”: 5
Yellow 5”: 5
Bright Pink 12”: 7
Pink(light) 9”: 6
Pink(light) 5”: 8
Gold 9”: 8
Caribbean Blue 12”: 6
Caribbean Blue 5”: 8
16” Gold 2 Balloon
All balloons were purchased from Party City!
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