Up, Up and Away! Centerpiece

Nothing sets the tone of a party quite like a centerpiece.

Your party centerpiece doesn’t need to take a lot of time or expensive materials. You can impress your guests without breaking the bank.

I’m going to show you how to create this fairly easy hot air balloon centerpiece for under $3.

Supplies:

Stacy Molter Designs’ Flower Pot Templates & Cutting Files
Americana Celebration Digital Kit by Etc. by Danyale
Epson Matte Presentation Paper
adhesive tape runner
ink – for edges and stamping
12 inch wooden skewers – painted white
9 inch wooden embroidery hoop – I used the inside hoop, painted white
low temp. hot glue gun
12 inch Royal blue balloon
Supplies to decorate your hot air balloon – I used 3D foam dots, white curling ribbon, button die from Stampin’ Up!, Banner die and alphabet stamp from My Favorite Things, white string or twine, shredded paper

Let’s get started….

1. Open Stacy’s flower pot template in your photo editing program (Stacy also includes cutting files in .dxf, .jpg, .png and .svg format).

2. Choose the paper for the “basket” of your hot air balloon – I used the striped paper from Danyale’s Americana Celebration Kit. I rotated and resized the paper to fit each side of her template. I recolored the cutting lines to a red a few shades darker than the stripes in the paper.

3. Print the finished template on Epson Matte Presentation paper using your printer’s best print option. I also printed a few squares/strips of the dark red and dark blue papers as well as a few stars to use to decorate my hot air balloon.

4. Score and crease the folds of the template. Ink all of the edges before assembling the template.

5. Using an adhesive of choice, assemble the flower pot. Fold the top edges of template to the inside to create a finished look around the inside edges.

6. Apply hot glue to the bottom of the painted wooden skewers one at a time and quickly position in the inside corner of the flower pot.

7. Now comes the tricky part – positioning the wood embroidery hoop on top of the skewers. Hold the hoop above the four skewers to get an idea of how it needs to be to be centered. Apply a small blob (good technical word there huh? LOL) to the top of one of the skewers and position the hoop horizontally – hold in place about 5-10 seconds to allow hot glue to cool. Be careful not to burn your fingers!!!

8. Hot glue the hoop to the skewer in the opposite corner and then the remaining corners. Hoop not centered over the skewers to your satisfaction? Hold a skewer in one hand and gently pull at hoop to remove from skewer. Gently pull off cooled hot glue. Re-hot glue.

Remove all hot glue boogies from your project!

9. Decorate your hot air balloon to your liking.

For the top of mine, I hot glued some curling ribbon to the hoop just above where the skewer is glued to the hoop. I used a button die in my Big Shot to create buttons using the dark red paper I printed. I tied some white embroidery floss in the center of my buttons before positioning the buttons on the hoop over top of the ribbon.

I decorated the “basket” of my hot air balloon by using a banner die on the dark blue paper strip I printed and also on some of the scrap white presentation paper remaining from cutting out the template.

I stamped a “U”, a “S” and an “A” on each of the stars I printed and then cut out the small stars. I adhered the stars to the banner with 3D foam squares. After tying some of the white embroidery floss between two skewers, I positioned each of the banner pennants so that they look like they are hanging from the white floss.

10. Finally, just before the start of your party, blow up the balloon as big as you can get it. Tie a knot and position the balloon in hoop. Fill the basket with shredded paper, candy, etc.

So, let’s see some other ways you can use a hot air balloon centerpiece….

How about as a centerpiece at the next baby shower you host? Simply by changing the papers I used and a few of the decorative elements, I came up with this:

Here’s a better photo of the basket:

I think this looks so dreamy and just perfect for a baby shower! Think how beautiful your baby shower tables would be with pink ones on half of the shower tables and blue ones on the other half. The pink and white striped paper was made for my by Donna of Quirky Twerp.

Or how about just for a fun centerpiece for a birthday party (or even a non-traditional baby shower)?

I was inspired to create this one by that fun orange argyle paper made by Laura of Wishing Well Creations.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and, if you are inspired to create your own hot air balloon, I’d love to see it!

LuAnn

Up, Up and Away! Centerpiece

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