The first piece of décor that comes to mind when we are organising a special event is party balloons. When you spot these rubbery and colourful décor pieces scattered around during special occasions, you might only associate them with celebrations like birthdays. Balloon decorations are more versatile than you think, though.
The surprising truth is that there are many more uses for party balloons. Decoration isn’t the only thing they’re good for, but they’re useful as well. You can bring out your DIY self and try using them for any of these five unique purposes.
1. Food and beverages
Party balloons can be used in many exciting food and beverage designs. You can fill them with juices or water and mixed fruit, then place them in the freezer until they are frozen solid. Once you remove them from the freezer, you can cut off the rubber exterior which will reveal a huge ice lolly.
To create gorgeously delicate chocolate bowls, you can dip a blown-up balloon into tempered chocolate. Once the chocolate is cooled down, pop the balloon and voila! – you get a gorgeously thin bowl of chocolate in which you can serve desserts.
2. Waterproofing
Since most party balloons are manufactured from latex, a rubbery substance that is fully waterproof, you can cut it up and use as a waterproofing barrier. The stretch from the material will allow you to manoeuvre it around a variety of electronics and household items.
When you visit the beach, you can keep your phone and other valuables inside to keep them dry and safe!
3.Ice pack
Are you tired of buying ice to throw in your icebox for every barbeque or picnic? Don’t want to buy expensive and small ice packs to soothe your aching muscles? Balloons have you covered! Just fill some balloons with water and freeze them in a freezer and voila, you have a DIY reusable ice pack.
You can even mould them into different shapes and sizes. Try placing something on the water balloon while it freezes to make a flat ice pack. Make sure it’s not too heavy!
4. Wireless internet
A popular internet company has reportedly sent durable balloons into the stratosphere, with the main purpose of beaming network and Wi-Fi signal to areas where the coverage isn’t as good. While the current internet balloon is kind of different from party balloons, their initial tests were done with just radio equipment and, you guessed it, party balloons!
It’s yet to be seen whether this will become a permanent solution, but it has shown promise in countries like Brazil and New Zealand.
5. Games
Party balloons can be really fun once you start thinking outside of the box. You can use smaller party balloons as water cannons in water balloon games. You can also try filling them with air and fixing them to a wall, then throw darts at them. Maybe you can see who can pop the most balloons using 8 darts. You can even put slips of paper with mystery tasks inside. Once someone pops the balloon, the player will have to do the activity that’s written down.
If being creative is more your style, try filling balloons with paint and pop them onto a white canvas as a fun art project.
After having fun with your balloons, always remember to clean up after your mess and pick up your balloon pieces off of the ground. However, if you have some balloons lying around after a fun party, don’t throw them away, try using them in these out-of-the-box ways instead!