I have been itching to share this project for months, but out of respect to my sister-in-law I had to make sure these were mailed out to guests first. As I mentioned previously, my sister and I are hosting a baby shower for my SIL in April. We chose “She is Going to Pop” for the party theme. You can check out our Pop Baby Shower inspiration board to see where we are going with the theme. You’ll notice we had our hearts set on printed balloon invitations.
The only problem with printed balloon invitations? Well, we only have a about 15 invitees, and most places that print on balloons require a minimum in the hundreds. Our spirit was bruised, but not defeated. We set out to experiment printing on balloons ourselves. We initially thought stamping on the balloon might work. The “permanent” ink we had smeared and the stamping seemed a bit laborious.
On a whim I tried writing on a balloon with a Sharpie. I blew up the balloon with a hand pump and used a hair binder to “tie it off”. I wrote on the inflated balloon with the Sharpie. At first glance, I was not impressed. It looked like, well, someone had written on a balloon with a Sharpie. But then something magical happened. When we released the air from the balloon and it began to deflate, we watched before our eyes as the hand-written letters shrunk and shriveled into almost perfect type. The printed, or should I say hand-printed, balloons looked amazing in their deflated state.
As we were making the invites I snapped some pictures of the magic that happens when they are deflated. If you scroll down quickly through these images it will be like a virtual flip book, as if you were there watching the balloon deflate.
To get the nicest possible effect when the balloons were inflated, we used lettering stencils. One had 1″ letters. The other 2″ letters. With the smaller stencil I wrote “Andrea is going to” in pink and then below in orange Sharpie, I wrote “POP” in the larger letters. Thankfully we found out the day before it is a girl, which made our color selections easier. The stencil helped keep things looking neat in their inflated state and then, of course, magic happened when the balloons shrunk down to their deflated size. The lettering shrunk to about 4 times smaller and the color of the ink appears darker in the shrunken state. The text is readable on the balloon, but small enough to still entice guests to inflate to get a closer look.
To finish off the invitations, we attached the balloons to melon-colored greeting cards with a blank inside. To attach the balloons, we taped a length of yarn to the front of the card with a small piece of clear tape. Then we laid the balloon on top and tied the yarn into a cute little bow.
The color scheme for the invites was inspired by a piece of scrapbook paper with a brown background and melon and pink dots. It was from my sister’s stash and we only had one sheet of it. We really wanted to use it on the invitations, so I recreated the pattern and colors as closely as I could in Adobe Illustrator. Once I had the pattern set, we made printable wrap-around address labels and inserts for the invitations.
We printed the wrap-around address labels onto full sheet sticker paper with my home color printer. The larger section with the to address goes on the front of the envelope. Then the label folds around to the back of the envelop, where the smaller section displays the from address.
To keep our hand written balloons simple, we deviated further from our inspiration invites and did not include any party details on the balloon itself. Instead we printed the information like a traditional invitation and put it inside the invitation cards. The key to making this quick and simple, was printing the invitation on the full page sticker paper. We fit four to a page. Then we cut them out and adhered them inside the cards. Way easier then glue or tape.
We are so pleased with how the entire invitation turned out. I think it sets the stage perfectly for the “POP” theme and a nice, modern girly color scheme. I am really excited to get into the actual party planning and bring this theme to life!
Sharing this project here:
Shabby Nest
House of Hepworths
Tatertots and Jello
This is SUCH a cute idea!! I love it! Thank you for sharing :)
What a great idea! I’ll definitely have to remember this for the future!
What a great idea! I wish I’d seen this sooner and I would have used it for the baby shower I’m helping host this weekend. It would have been perfect. I guess it will have to be for next time :)
I love the idea of printing the inside of the invite on sticker paper and then adhering it to the car stock. Saves time on gluing and formatting. Thanks for sharing!
What a cute idea. I love the fonts you used on the balloon. You’ve got to save one for your SIL. She’ll love it.
That is absolutely adorable! Really, it would work for a kids’ birthday party too, although I love the “she’s going to pop”…too cute! You did an awesome job. I’d love for you to share this at my party, going on all weekend!
http://oneartmama.blogspot.com/2012/03/shine-on-fridays-21-plus-features-and.html
Very cute! And the sharpie worked out great!
I love this. My daughter is crazy about the movie “Up” right now. These would make great party invites for an “Up” birthday. Thanks for the inspiration :)
How did you keep your Sharpie from smearing???!!! I can’t keep it from becoming almost ilegible :(
Anna,
We let ours dry briefly before deflating the balloon. We also ensured not to touch the marker until it was dry before attaching them to the invites and stuffing in envelopes. Hope this helps.
How long did you let the balloons dry? I have let the deflated and inflated balloon sit for 12 hours and it still smears?
This is a great idea, my wife did the same concept for her baby shower for our first child. I would recommend if you have a few bucks to spare though get a custom printed balloon. I had to do all the research for my wife and found many great places online that print smaller quantities and not too expensive prices. You can do a search online but the 2 places I ended up ordering from were
http://www.hullaballooprinting.com and http://www.personalizedballoons.com
Brandon,
Thanks for the references. I am sure this will help other readers that don’t have time or a steady hand to make their own balloons.
What an awesome idea! You did such a good job I’m upset that I can’t find the same scrapbook paper. Your colors are identical to what my color theme is. One question, what size ballon did you use?
Deetra,
Thank you. Sorry I don’t know the balloon size. It was whatever they sell in bags of 50 at Party City.
I found the scrapbook paper at Archivers, but it was almost a year ago. Hopefully they have something in a similar color scheme for you.
how did you get the balloon to stick on the card?
Dawn,
We put a small piece of tape to tape the yarn to the card, then we tied the yarn around the balloon. It was not attached at the top. We just made sure the balloon laid flat when we slid it into the envelope so the recipient would slide it out with the balloon looking cute.
Hi!
I’ve stumbled upon this as we’re trying to do this for quirky save the dates for our wedding! Only we’re having an issue with the sharpie re-printing on everything when it deflates, even though it’s fine dried when inflated. Any tips? Wonder if the quality of balloons makes a difference.
Fiona, I think it is the marker, not the balloons that is the problem. We noticed some smudging or reprinting with ours when they were deflated too, so we were very careful when handling and packaging them. I would experiment with other permanent markers. Good luck!
This is a genius idea. We’ve added it to a blog post and will credit you. I’ll email you the link when it’s published. Thank you!