balloon archway for a baby shower celebration!

In the hot Atlanta heat of a July afternoon, I cohosted a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law. They were pregnant with TWIN GIRLS, which was incredibly exciting since their pregnancy journey was difficult, and also exciting because my brothers are twins as well! 

I cohosted the shower, and we divided out decorations responsibilities. I volunteered to create a large balloon archway for photos and as a large decoration on the deck in the backyard. You can find various tutorials online, but I primarily worked from this excellent one from the website The House That Lars Built.

The hardest thing to problem solve was how to make an arch structure in the wide opening at the top of the deck stairway (the online tutorial linked above was for a more organic shape). I found an 8ft PVC pipe at Home Depot that allowed for enough bend for a curved archway, and wouldn't snap. I inserted 2 4ft dowels into the ends of the PVC to give me some structure that I could attach to the deck stairway with zip ties. 

Lastly, the one thing that I wished I could have done differently was start earlier -- filling a structure this large with balloons was incredibly time consuming, and I would have liked to have made it a fuller display with more time (I invested about 5-6 hours total on the installation, and had most of the balloons already blown up prior to installation). Also, that hot Atlanta heat caused many of the balloons to deflate to about 1/3 of their size by the end of the shower, which is also good to know in hot temperatures!

Overall, I was so happy that I could create a statement that my brother and sister-in-law loved as part of their shower. Shout out to the Oh Happy Day party shop, which sells some of the most beautiful, durable balloons available, and in all the best color assortments. I love this source for party supplies! 

MATERIALS:  ARCHWAY FRAMEWORK -  1/2" PVC pipe, wooden dowels (must fit inside PVC), zip ties (and decorative ribbon to cover the zip ties for presentation), chicken wire, and clear packing tape. BALLOON DECORATIONS - assorted balloons in different colors and sizes (Oh Happy Day and Amazon), handheld balloon pump, low temp glue gun and glue sticks, and thin silver wire