Monday Made It Fun

It is here! I have been waiting ALL weekend for this fun bloggy day! You think I am joking but I am soooo excited to share with you this absolutely fabulous craftivity that I made this weekend!





So, last week I found this pin....

I mean wow! How cute are those balloons! As soon as I saw this picture I couldn't stop thinking about how darn cute these things are. They kind of led me to the inspiration of my classroom decor for next year... HOT AIR BALLOONS! So, you guessed it... I turned this pin into my pinspiration of hot air balloons! Watch and see how I turned that to this:

You will need a few other things but we will get to those in a moment.

Here is what you do:

1. Put paper towels or newspaper down in the area you are working... this is messy!
2. Make a Tupperware container or a bowl of liquid starch. The pin said glue and water mixture but this seemed easier. You can buy this bottle of Sta-Flo for $3 at Walmart. 
3. Blow up balloons. I only did 4. It would be fun to do some big and small. Mine aren't all the same but they are similarly sized. 
4. Dip thread in liquid starch and start wrapping around the balloon. When you think you have wrapped enough, wrap a little more...looks can be deceiving! When I finished wrapping, I used a paint brush to put a little bit more starch on the whole thing. 
5. Hang to dry. (They will drip so hang somewhere that it won't matter or lay newspaper underneath). I waited over 24 hours.

 

6. Pop balloons and scrape off any extra dried starch. I hung mine outside; b/c of the weather the balloons shrunk by themselves, all I had to do was pull out of string.

They didn't all turn out perfect. I think the balloon in my pink one started deflating before the starch was completely dry b/c there are some lumpy parts on one side. The others look awesome though!

At this point you can stop if all you want are the balloons. If you want hot air balloons, keep going...


7. Now you need a few more supplies.

Brown paper to make origami box

Scissors

Some kind of string or twine

Hole punch

Orange ribbon

8. Click here to go to some awesome origami instructions to make the paper basket. You have to scroll down b/c there are instructions for a top to the box too (you just want the bottom). I found some adorable scrapbook paper on sale at Michael's that I used for this (it looked like a burlap sack). 

9. After making the box, hole punch one hole on each side of the box near the top. String with short pieces of twine or string. 

10. This was the time consuming part. You have to find the perfect places to tie the string to the balloon so it doesn't look so lopsided. 

11. Add a small orange bow to the bottom of the balloon (you know, the fire!)

You have completed an adorable hot air balloon! 

This poor balloon looks deflated! It will work though :)

Now you can see my hot air balloon pinspirations! In addition to this craft, I created a whole classroom decor set for hot air balloons. It includes almost everything you could possibly need to the get the year off started right! 

Click the picture to see all that is included in my TPT store!

I am already heading to Joann's and Hobby Lobby for cloud fabric for some new curtains! I would love to hear your thoughts about something fun I can add to my room with this theme...