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Christmas

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I tend to get bored with decor pretty easily and like switching things up from year to year. I am not made of money however so I try my best to come up with fun cost-effective solutions that reuse some of my decor, but still give it a fun twist. Last year I went way off the reservation and leaned on my love of balloon garland to create a really exciting Christmas tree! This balloon garland Christmas tree decor was inexpensive, long-lasting, and a big hit with my kiddos.

This is the fourth day of my 12 Days of Christmas DIYs for 2018. Each day for the next twelve days I share DIY projects, recipes, entertainment, and more, that you can incorporate in your holiday season. Most will be super simple!

Balloon Christmas Tree Decor | A Well Crafted Party

Creating this GIANT garland was no small feat. However, though it was time-consuming, it was super easy to create. I’ll walk you through my process and share a few other wonderful tutorials below. I’ll also share some of my favorite supplies so you can recreate this for your Christmas tree or for your next party.

I’ve tried several different ways of creating balloon garland in the past. I’ve tried a method that includes hot glue guns, chicken wire, and fishing line. I loved the look, but swore a LOT and popped a lot of balloons. I’ve tried hot glue and string to great success… yes, hot glue works on balloons! But, my favorite way of creating the garland is actually just with some bakers twine and different sized balloons.

Balloon Christmas Tree Decor | A Well Crafted Party

Balloon Garland Christmas Tree Decor

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Suggested Supplies:

Balloon Christmas Tree Decor | A Well Crafted Party

Directions:

  1. Have a good mix of sizes of balloons. For this project, I knew I wanted mostly white balloons with some colorful ones inserted throughout. Blow up as many as you can in one go without being bored. It’ll make the whole process go more quickly. Blow them up without extending it too much. Feel free to blow them up at different sizes, it will give you some good dimension to your garland. You’ll need quite a bit of tie left on the balloon.
  2. Once you have several balloons blown up, select three of different sizes and tie them together at the balloon tops. Create several of these mixes. Then do similar with two balloons. When creating a tree garland you’ll want to start with the smallest sizes and move to larger.
  3. Once you have several of the trios and doubles of balloons pull out the bakers’ twine! Cut off some twine about a foot longer than what you want your total garland to extend. Tie off the bottom on one of the duos of balloons, then string on a triplet and tie it off, continue this process. Move the balloons around as you are putting the garland together to shape your garland.

Other great balloon garland tutorials:

  • Poppies for Grace Balloon Garland Tutorial — I actually just discovered this tutorial when working on this post and it is exactly the way I make my balloon garlands except using duo balloon clusters and fishing line. The same basic idea, however. Really easy to follow video too!
  • Oriental Trading’s Balloon Garland Tutorial — This one is similar to mine as well, but they help tie the balloons to a string using more string. It sounds confusing, but the video makes a ton of sense!
  • Classy Clutter’s Balloon Garland Tutorial— They use more supplies to create their balloon garland including a needle and hot glue gun. I think this method would be really great if you need a bit more structure to your garland.
  • The House that Lars Built Balloon Garland Tutorial— This tutorial is perfect if you need a LOT of structure to your garland. It will help you shape your garland exactly how you want it.

 

Balloon Christmas Tree Decor | A Well Crafted Party

October through January 1st marks my very favorite season. What season you, ask? It certainly doesn’t fit in the normal four seasons of Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. Nope… it’s Party Season! To me, this is truly the most wonderful time of the year as it gives me ample opportunities to enjoy the company of my friends and family. Also, I do love me some party food. When decorating my house a couple of years ago I really wanted to touch on this wonderful season with a cheap and easy holiday decor item— a printable poster! This “Wonderful Time of The Year” Poster printable is super sleek with it’s black and white color scheme. It’ll pop amoung nearly anyone’s holiday decorations.

This is the third day of my 12 Days of Christmas DIYs for 2018. Each day for the next twelve days I share DIY projects, recipes, entertainment, and more, that you can incorporate in your holiday season. Most will be super simple!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year Poster | A Well Crafted Party

To create this super simple DIY you only need to download the free printable Holiday Poster File, save to your computer, and then bring to your favorite Staples store. Order this print as an Engineering Print. Frame your poster with a poster frame or post with tacks!

I love snowmen. They are just entirely too cute! They also make a great theme for a kid-friendly party. While you may not be hosting a kid’s class party this winter, you might still find some easy DIY items to incorporate into your holiday festivities where kids may be present. Some of my favorite bits of inspiration include the cheesy snowmen and melted snow water bottles!

This post is the second in my 12 Days of Christmas DIYs. Each day for the next twelve days I share DIY projects, recipes, entertainment, and more, that you can incorporate in your holiday season. Most will be super simple!

Snowman Party Snack Ideas | A Well Crafted Party

Snowman Class Party Ideas – Food

When hosting this holiday party I had some pretty strict food rules that I had to abide by for the safety of the students and (guessing here) liability reasons. I’m sure that many classrooms across America are having similar rules so hopefully, these ideas are helpful. We were not allowed to do much in the form of sweets and everything had to be store-bought and prepared. We were able to prepare a few things there in the classroom, but we didn’t have more than 15 minutes for set up nor a full kitchen to work with!

Our Snowman Class Party Menu:

The snack table held water bottles labeled as melted snow, cheese sticks dressed up as snowmen, and mini bags of carrot sticks labeled as snowmen noses. We also did a fun snowman activity that had the kids creating a snack of bananas, pretzel sticks, strawberries, candy-coated chocolates, and marshmallows. The kids would make their snowmen-snacks and then finish all of the other activities and got to eat them and the rest of the snack items at the end of the party.

Snowman Party Snack Ideas | A Well Crafted Party Snowman Party Snack Ideas | A Well Crafted Party

Snowman class party activities

This party was created for a kindergarten classroom. Though, many of the activities would really translate well into different ages. We co-opted the tables of the classroom to create different stations. Each station was manned by a volunteer parent and the kids moved from one station to another about every eight to ten minutes. I’ll share as much as I can with each of the activities to hopefully inspire some ideas of your own. If you’d like to recreate what I did, use the free printables linked below!

Snowman Party Activity | A Well Crafted Party

Snowman Party Snack Activity: This one is hopefully pretty self-explanatory. Each snowman is created with three slices of banana, four pretzel rods, 1 half strawberry, 1 orange candy-coated chocolate, and 1 mini marshmallow. You skewer the bananas with 1 pretzel rod. You skewer the strawberry to the banana with another. Finally, you add in two rods for the arms. Most of the kids skipped two of the pretzel rods and just organized them on the plate to give the general effect.

Snowman Party Activity | A Well Crafted Party

Snowman giftbag activity: I didn’t use a printable to create these, but rather I created them by simply cutting the items out of construction paper. Perhaps someday I’ll make a coordinating printable, but for now, only the activity sign is in the free printable package below. Each snowman bag was created with a white paper gift bag, black tissue paper, 6 “coals” cut out of construction paper, 1 strip of black construction paper (to make hat brim), 1 orange carrot cut out of construction paper, and two brown “twigs” cut out of construction paper. I pre-cut everything and had it ready at the table with lots of glue sticks. The kids then glued the items onto their bags. I stuffed with black tissue paper to finish off the hat! We then added in the picture frames from another activity so that they could give the gift to someone that they loved!

Snowman Party Activity | A Well Crafted Party

Snowman picture frame activity: My trusty Instax camera and I go everywhere these days. My son LOVES getting his photo taken so we decided it would be fun to use the Instax camera in a photobooth and then create picture frames to give as a gift. I created a photobooth using paper and painting snow on it. The kids then took a photo in front of it. I had props such as a cap and scarf for the kids to wear if they wanted. While each kid got their photo taken the other kids in the group colored on their picture frame. Then, using double-sided tape, I attached their photo to the frame.

Snowman Party Activity | A Well Crafted Party

Snowman Word Jumble Activity: I like it when school parties have a lot of fun mixed in with a bit of learning. I created this word jumble game to help infuse some learning into the mix. It was a tad too advanced for some of the kindergarteners, but the parent volunteer was able to help them through. It might be perfect for a first or second grade classroom! The kids would roll the dice and then try to create sentences from the words that they received in their jumble.

Snowman party free printables

Get your free printable by clicking on the image below and saving the PDF to your computer. Follow the instructions on the instruction page to print each item. The snowman party printables include banners, party circles, signs, word jumble cubes, word jumble worksheet, and coloring picture frame. All are free for personal use.

Free Snowman Party Printables | A Well Crafted Party