How to make a big balloon arch – tips and tricks to know before you start!

I used to always look on Pinterest at the big balloon arches and think, “I could never do that!” They look SO complicated and intricate, and I was sure they must take several hours. Last week when we were celebrating our little boy’s first birthday, I decided to go out on a limb and see what the process actually was to make your own balloon arch.

I decided to order a balloon arch kit from Amazon. You don’t HAVE to have a kit to make a balloon arch, but it does really simplify things since it comes with the different sizes of balloons, the tape to attach your balloons to, and sticky glue dots that you will need for the small balloons.

I ordered the Circus Carnival Party Balloons Garland Arch Kit pictured below. I took a lot of time reading through reviews, and looking at pictures on the reviews . . . to see if anyone had success getting their kit to truly become a beautiful balloon arch as pictured on Amazon.

(PS – Some of the balloon arch kits have terrible reviews in regards to balloons not being the same colors as pictured, so be sure to check those reviews if you are specific about the colors!)

With any balloon arch, you are going to be blowing up a LOT of balloons. My kit had 96 balloons total, and they filled up a 16 foot length of balloon tape. So if you are wanting a 16 ft arch, you will need that many balloons. If you want a smaller arch, you will need less.

I blew up all of the 12″ balloons by myself in an hour. If you get short of breath or if you are just not fond on blowing up balloons, I would recommend this balloon pump. It will definitely make it a much easier process, especially for the smaller 5″ balloons. I could not blow up those ones by myself and had to enlist the help of my husband! 🙂

Before you start blowing up your balloons, make sure you remember that all of these balloons will take up a lot of space!

TIP FOR THE CONFETTI BALLOONS: To make the confetti circles stick to the balloon, rub the inflated balloon on carpet or a fuzzy blanket. The confetti will “magically” stick to the sides of the balloon.

Another thing to take note of is that you don’t want to blow your balloons up too early. I needed the balloon arch on a Thursday, so I waited until Wednesday afternoon to blow them up, then assembled the balloon arch on Wednesday night. Balloons can shrink in different temperatures and types of weather, so to be safe, wait as long as possible before making your balloon arch in order to have the best results possible!

How to assemble your balloon arch –

Your balloon kit will come with “balloon tape” – it looks like this.

To attach the balloons to the tape, put the knot of the balloon into the large hole, then slide it over into the smaller hole to secure.

Be careful with this step, if you do it too forcefully, the balloon can pop. It’s really not that hard tho! Just go nice and gentle and easy.

I put all of the large balloons on the tape, alternating colors and the confetti balloons. If it starts getting too tight, then skip a hole and put the balloon in the next one. After you attach all of your large balloons, you will have a 16 ft long string of colorful balloons.

The next thing I did was to attach the arch to the wall BEFORE I added the small balloons. This will definitely be the easiest way to do it.

To attach the arch to the wall, I used these command hooks.

Once you try these hooks, they will be your lifelong friend. They work for SO many things.

Your balloon “arch” can be whatever shape you desire! One very popular way to do it is in an upside down L shape. Since my arch was for a 1 year old party, I wanted the arch well out of reach out little hands. 🙂 That is why I chose to put the arch up high out of reach, and not to touch the floor.

Simply put a couple of command hooks wherever you want your arch to be. Then using balloon ribbon or string, tie a piece around your completed balloon strand, and loop that string onto the command hook. Mine stayed up for several days using this method, it never fell down once.