Balloon Bow - Creative Gift Wrapping

On the same day as our school carnival, we were invited to the birthday party of a little girl--the girl of whom my 6 year old son has been heard to say that he is "so in love!"

Our schedule was a bit crazy that day (when is it not?) and when it came time to wrap her present, I realized that all of my gift-wrap was in where my baby was sleeping. If you know how little this child has been prone to sleep, you will understand that I wasn't going to risk waking him up for anything! It was time to get creative about gift wrap!


BSB had been practicing his balloon tying skills for the carnival, and had determined that some of his older balloons were too old to work well for tying. He gave me free reign to repurpose them.


I wrapped the present in some craft paper I had lying around. Then, I created a bow from the colorful balloons, and stretched a few more colorful balloons around the box to hold the balloon in place.


The next weekend, my 3 year old had a birthday party to attend. There were still balloons hanging around, so, I thought it would be fun to make another bow to put on her gift bag. I took some pictures this time, to share with you.

I just started by picking the most colorful balloons and lining them up neatly (more or less). I would like to try this with 2 or three times the balloons, for a fun full look! But this worked, too.

Then I folded the balloons in half. Then I gripped them at the center of the folded balloons.

I tied the folded balloons together with another balloon, and secured it in a knot.










Then I cut all of the folded sides of the balloons, so that they would stick out like the other side.

And this is what our spunky balloon bow looked like on it's pink polkadotted gift bag.

"And what's inside that pink gift bag?" you may wonder. I'm glad you asked. I had a ton of Play Doh (unused, I assure you) to give to the birthday girl, but didn't feel like I could just dump it into a gift bag. This plastic container was being underused, so I spiffied it up by cutting some bright pink vinyl letters with my Silhouette that say "Play Doh." It only took a few minutes (all of the time I had) to add those details. Hopefully, her mom won't mind the messy gift so much, since it came with its own organization.

Have you given or decorated any resourceful gifts lately? I love to collect cute gift and wrapping ideas on my board on Pinterest. In fact, I think the balloon idea was inspired by the rainbow yarn package I have marked there.

p.s. Head on over to the AZ Girls' Night Out Site for a sneak peek at our awesome swag bags!

p.p.s It's not too late to vote for me on the 

Circle of Moms Top Party Planning Moms Contest.

Just give me the thumbs up! You can vote every day until April 11, and you can vote for multiple sites (as all of my favs are on the list, too)! I'd sure appreciate your thumbs up!