When we were asked to create an Encanto balloon garland for a sweet boy’s first birthday party, we responded with a resounding “sí!”
Encanto has touched the heart of millions, and sent countless children running around their houses singing about a guy named Bruno. Children young and old have fallen in love with the movie, and it has become a popular theme at birthday parties across the nation.
The Perfect Palette
Aside from the catchy music, one of the most popular things about Encanto is the colors used in the movie. Vibrant, tropical colors appear in character outfits, plants, animals, the scenery, and especially on Casita.
We wanted to capture these gorgeous colors in our garland, so we pulled our brightest shades of every color of the rainbow.
Instead of incorporating green balloons, we chose a selection of giant tropical greenery and leaves, which we planned to incorporate at random throughout the garland.
The colors looked beautiful in their storage containers, but once they were inflated, the look was even more amazing.
Advanced Preparations
As is typical with most of our jobs, we inflated all of the balloons needed for our Encanto balloon garland a couple of days in advance.
Because of the nature of air-filled latex balloons, if properly stored, they will maintain their shape, size, and brilliance for a week or more! This makes things easy, especially when we have multiple jobs to complete in one day (as was the case with this busy Saturday.)
We created several organic clusters, using balloons of varying sizes grouped together by color. Once our clusters were created, we tied them together by the necks to form our full garland.
Smaller quads of 5″ balloons were linked together using 260 balloons, then looped through the garland to add random pops of different colors to our design.
Once the garland was complete, we packed it up in one of our giant plastic storage bags. This protects the balloons from any exposure to sunlight while they await their delivery and install. It also makes them easier to transport and removes the risk of popping as the garland is transferred to our car.
We always pack a kit filled with spare balloons (in case of emergency,) as well as multiple ways to mount the garland depending on the wall material. We always make sure we’re prepared for any scenario, so every install goes off without a hitch!
Party Time!
Since the garland was fully assembled in advance, all we had to do was arrive at the venue and mount it to the wall using paint-safe command hooks and 260 balloons.
We adjusted the positioning of the balloons to give it the perfectly full, organic look, then set to work adding the greenery. Some of the leaves came with long wire stems, which we covered with 260s to keep them from popping our garland before adding them to the balloons. Other leaves were stemless, and were held in place by two touching balloons.
The Encanto balloon garland was a huge hit at the party, and it matched perfectly with the “hurricane of jacarandas” flower garlands hung throughout the house!
