Need a vintage hot air balloon to decorate for a baby shower or a little girl’s room? You’re going to love this tutorial! You can completely customize this Hot Air Balloon to fit any theme or style. You can even make it functional by adding a small light (like the Mini Party Accent Lights or LED Tea Lights) to the inside and turn your hot air balloon into a lantern. So sweet!
Supplies needed to make a hot air balloon:
- White 8″ Paper Lantern
- Tissue Paper
- Spray Adhesive
- Baker’s Twine
- Paper Mache Cupcake Box
- Scrapbook Cardstock
- EK Tools Flag Punch
- Acrylic Craft Paint
- Large Needle
- 1/16 Power Punch
- 1/4″ Double sided tape
1. Cut out strips of your desired color of tissue paper. Lightly spray the back of each strip with adhesive and press into place. (It helps to follow the existing seams to keep the papers spaced evenly.)
2. Cut four pieces of the twine, each one approximately 4 ft. long. This is going to give you more than enough string to work worth and you’ll have to cut off a ton at the end but at least you won’t have to worry about not having enough! Tie them together with a knot and loop through the hook in the middle of the lantern. Tie two strands together right where the tissue paper part of the lantern starts. Separate these two strands and then tie each to the adjacent strands. Repeat to all sides until knots reach halfway down on lantern.
3. Paint the paper mache basket, with acrylic paint in your choice of color, and use the Power Punch to punch four evenly spaced holes in the rim. (You could try to do this with just a sharp object, but the Power Punch is really quite awesome…and you don’t have to worry about puncturing yourself!)
4. Using a large needle, string each of the twine groupings through the punched holes.
Knot in place and cut off extra twine.
5. Punch 9 flags out of scrapbook paper, fold edge, and secure in place on twine with double sided tape.
7. Hang the pennant flag strand around the hot air balloon and hang somewhere special!
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This is so cute, I’m in the process of making them for a baby shower. The toughest part is making sure all sides of the basket are hanging even. Other than that, this project was so easy and so cute!
4x4ft is very too small 🙁
I’m sorry if the 4 ft. length of twine wasn’t long enough. You should be able to easily add an additional length with just a small knot. Hope that helps!
I loved your article post. Really Great.
Love your tutorial. Is the type of baker’s twine you used the same you linked too from consumer crafts. I like the thick baker’s twine and it is always hard to tell online. I bought some online once and it was very thin and disappointing. The kind in your tutorial looks nice and thick and sturdy. Thanks for any help!
Waow I really love the idea and I give it a go for the nursery of my Baby Boy !
Hi! We love this and have added it to our round-up of great Hot Air Balloon crafts! Hope thats OK xx
http://buttonsandpaint.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/hot-air-balloon-crafts.html
This is BEYOND adorable! love it Vanessa!
Adorable!!!!!