I can’t believe the boys are 6! {You can read my Early Days with Twins post here}. Their second lockdown birthday meant no big party or day out could be planned so of course I wanted to make sure we had a proper celebration at home.
The boys LOVE dinosaurs so picking a theme was easy and of course Pinterest provided all the inspiration I needed.
Of course the balloon arch won me over so I did a quick YouTube search to teach myself how to make one. This video by Camp Dash really helped give me an idea of what to do plus made me realise the set I’d originally bought off Amazon didn’t have all the bits I needed – cue a last minute Amazon Prime purchase {click on image link below or order here} thank the Lord for next day delivery!}
What you will need
Ok so to make a basic balloon half arch you will need:
- A decent number of balloons! The pack I bought had 70 and I probably used ~60 of them
- Balloon strip tape – this has holes to poke the knot of your balloon through to keep them in place
- Glue dots – to attach smaller balloons to fill any gaps
- Command hooks {optional} – this is something which didn’t come with the pack I bought but you need to think about how you’re going to attach your arch to a wall / door frame etc. We ended up using picture hooks
- Some string – to attach your arch to the command / picture hooks
How to make your arch
The YouTube video I watched said to make some big and some small balloons and to let some air out to make them into a round ball shape rather than an oval balloon shape. In hindsight I wished I’d just left a few balloons spare to blow up to the right size and add later as I probably would have made some of my small balloons even smaller. And I just stuck to an oval shape which worked out fine.
I started with a rough pattern of balloon colours but, again in hindsight, wish I’d laid out a proper pattern to use – it probably didn’t matter in the end but it would have helped the flow of colours. I put large balloons through all the holes in the strip tape all the same direction. I don’t know if this is correct but it seemed a good place to start and I guess you can use your own creative preferences for this part, especially if you are using different sizes of balloon and depending on what shape you’re looking to create. Anyway my process seemed to work fine so I’d probably do it the same way next time.
The more balloons you add the more you’ll see the arch take shape and you can move balloons into place to create the desired shape or swap colours easily if needs be. I created the main part of he arch upstairs so I could get started before the kids went to bed {and hid it in our en suite!}
I then moved it downstairs {not the easiest of endeavours!} and moved bits around some more once I could see where exactly I wanted the arch to go.
I then worked out where I would need hooks to attach the arch to the wall and tapped in some hooks. I only needed two in the end but this will depend on the size and length of your arch. I then tied string around the strip tape before attaching it to the hooks {with help from Mr H}.
Finishing touches
Once your arch is up you can again move balloons around if you need to {it gets more fiddly by this stage!} then you can start adding smaller balloons to fill any gaps. To do this use a couple of glue dots to attach the smaller balloons to the larger ones.
The end result
And here it is! I was so pleased with the end result – especially as it was the first time I’d ever attempted anything like this! It made a real statement and with a few other decorations really made the room feel special. And the boys absolutely loved it which of course is the main thing ♥︎
Have you ever made a balloon arch? I’d love to hear your tips!
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