Sunday, we hosted a wedding shower for our soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Emily. Let me just say that beginning to install a hardwood floor in the family room 2 weeks before the shower was not the most brilliant move we have made. The wood floor looks wonderful but the week we thought it would take to install it ended up being almost 2 weeks! That left a minimum of time to finish shower food, details, and this balloon column.
In spite of this, we ended up pulling off a pretty nice shower. The theme I had in mind was pink balloons and pink roses. I’ve seen all the pretty balloon arches on Pinterest and decided to make one. Initially, I had planned to have this on the patio along with the pink petunias planted this spring.
Well, the weather was not cooperating. It has rained so much here, the mosquitos and nasty little bugs are thick. The weather is so unpredictable, inside seemed much more preferable.
Balloon Column Research
So, I started researching how to make one of these balloon columns or arches. One idea was to use PVC pipe. When Will was little, I co-chaired a Fright Night event at the local elementary school. We used PVC pipe to create an arch that went up the hall walls and across the ceiling. Then, we tied orange and black balloons to it along with a banner that I painted on cardboard. (Cardboard, it’s amazing what you can do with it!)
Since I had experience with this one, I thought some more research might lead to a less expensive way. PVC pipe is not really cheap!
There was another post on Pinterest showing how to use chicken wire to make a balloon column. The thought of using chicken wire inside the house next to all the walls, the wood on the floors, and the banisters was not particularly appealing. Balloons and wire together make me a little uneasy, too…
Then, I came across this post from Lily at LilyArdor.com. I don’t know if she came up with this idea but whoever did was genius! She used 2″ clear tape to create a base for the balloons. Sounds crazy? It is so easy, you won’t believe it!
How To Make The Base For The Balloon Column
To make the base, use clear 2″ tape. Roll the tape end back and adhere to the countertop or work surface, sticky side up. Measure 4-feet and double the tape back on itself, sticky sides together, creating a four-foot section of tape. Turn the tape over and apply another layer of tape onto the first section. Repeat, so you have 4-layers of tape.
Lily said to make four-foot sections. I’m assuming this is because it is easier to manage. Technically, you can do longer sections. It would be easy to attach one section to another, so, it doesn’t really matter. Make as many as you need.
Anyway, after you have a four-foot section with four layers of clear tape, use a hole punch to make holes. I made holes in the pattern resembling the pattern of five on dice, over and over, the length of the tape. There were plenty of holes to use for attaching the balloons.
Make as many of these as you need for the length you want. Then, blow up balloons. This is just crazy! You just insert the balloon opening, above the knot, you tied, into one of the holes. The mouth of the balloon holds the balloon in the punched hole!
Make another length of the clear tape base and you can attach it to the first with fishing line or string. You want something that is not really noticeable. Fishing line works nicely.
Buying The Balloons
For this balloon column, it didn’t take that many balloons. I bought way more than I needed. Of course, I had planned to have an entire arch! In the end, I used a bag of 72-12″ rose color balloons, a bag of 20-9″ gold balloons, a bag of 50-5″ off-white balloons, and a bag of 15-12″ white balloons. I used only about half of them.
Blowing Up The Balloons And Attaching
If you are blowing up a lot of balloons, you might want to purchase one of these balloon pumps
like I did. They are relatively inexpensive and just might keep you from hyperventilating! (We are an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small percentage of any sales from this link. Thanks for supporting this website.)
Anyway, just start attaching balloons to the clear tape strip, one at a time. The balloons at the base of the column were blown up larger. Progressively, up the column, less air was blown into the balloons, so they are smaller.
My plan was to make an over-the-top arch here but as I said, the hardwood floors put me behind. Time waits for no man, or woman, as the case might be. We ended up with a column, which was still pretty.
In the first picture, you can see the balloons attached to the clear tape base. (This still amazes me that this is just held together with a base of tape!)
In the second picture of the balloon column, you can see that balloons were added at the bottom and small gold balloons were glued all the way up the column. Some were glued to hide the tape base, which you can see in the picture below. It’s not very conspicuous but a little gold balloon there will completely hide the underpinnings!
How neat is that?
Attaching More Balloons With Glue Gun
Believe it or not, I used a glue gun to attach these! Yes, a glue gun.
Have you seen these AdTech LoTemp Glue Guns?
(We are an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small percentage of any sales from this link at no cost to you. Thanks for supporting this website.)
Well, I bought one of these and let Aidan and Sophie try it out on some balloons in other colors just to make sure it would work. They had a ball! It actually works without popping the balloons! They were amazed and delighted.
Who knew you could create an inexpensive beautiful balloon column or arch just using regular clear tape for a base and a glue gun to fill in with more balloons?
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