READ THIS BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT DIY PARTY BALLOONS

Today we are talking about DIY balloons and why they are rarely as good as a professional setup.

While of course we much prefer to be your party supplier for balloon installations and decor we totally understand there are many reasons people choose to DIY their balloons. If you have ever tried to DIY birthday balloons whether they are heliums bunches or a garland for a backdrop and they just didn’t work how you envisioned - your not alone and there are reasons why!

Lets start with helium balloons.
If you have tried your own heliums you probably bought a small tank from a party supply store, filled your balloons and ended up disappointed with the float time potentially not even lasting the day.

Here’s why…

Firstly, the helium in those tanks are mixed with oxygen which makes the air inside heavier - straight up this reduces your float time significantly and in some cases doesn’t have enough helium to float a foil balloon (we use pure helium for a longer lasting float.)

The next issue is the quality of your balloons - lower quality balloons will leak helium faster than professional grade, again reducing your float time. While the quality of cheaper foil balloons is often okay, depending where you buy them from they can have issues of weight vs helium capacity and even when filled with professional helium they will not float.

Hi-float is supplied in all of our latex helium balloons which creates an extra coating of seal inside to keep the helium in for longer. This can be added to lower quality balloons to help keep the helium from leaking. HOWEVER if you are using store bought helium tanks it can add extra weight to the balloons and wont help the initial problem of the oxygen mix.

This is why professional heliums balloons can seem a little pricey compared to a DIY job - a lot more goes into them than you might think.

Okay, we have covered heliums now let’s talk about balloon garlands.

If you’re DIYing a balloon garland, chances are you found a cheap package to suit your theme online that displays a stunning photo of the balloon arrangement ‘you can create yourself’ right?
Well… thats not quite the case.

Before you even get into creating your garland, some cheap unbranded balloons actually have harmful carcagens in the powder used to avoid the balloons sticking together. They aren’t tested or moderated and you might find they have a terrible smell and give you a headache while blowing them up. This is the first problem.

The second problem is that some budget websites use AI and have been known to steal images from professional balloon artists to advertise their balloon packages when their package cannot physically create the same garland even if you are a professional. The balloons are smaller in size than the balloons used by professionals so you don’t get that full look and they are often see through. I have personally experienced this issue when creating a garland from client provided balloons (which I no longer do).

Here’s how that went…
The client provided two packets of the same balloon package just to make sure there was enough to achieve the look on the front of the packet. Well, this still wasn’t enough - I ended up adding my own balloons on top of two packets just to complete the set up. I got a head ache immediately when blowing up the balloons and the colour from the balloons was actually coming off onto my hands!! The balloons were see through, they were small and they were missing the larger size required to create a professional looking garland.

This is why, not matter how hard you try you will never achieve the same look as the photo on the packet when using some cheap balloon packages for your event.

I hope this blog can provide some insight into DIY balloons and why people are often disappointed with their results.

We do our best to cater to all budgets and you might just be surprised by how far your budget can go when ordering professional balloons not to mentioned the time and stress it can save you!

Thanks for reading!
Liv