Outdoor Balloon Garland

Equipment

These are the Inflators we use! We recommend an air pump that is strong enough to inflate your double-stuffed balloons. The air pro shown below has been discontinued but there are other great quality inflators like Conwin’s Air Force 2 or Air Force 4 and Premium brand.  Lower quality inflators will overheat after a few minutes of use. The second inflator is strictly used to inflate 260Qs, double stuffed 5” and mini-orbz

Balloons

There are different brands of balloons available. We like Qualatex and it is the one we use 90% of the time.  TufTex and Sempertex are other two good brands we use for more colour alternatives. 

As per sizes of balloons, all of our garlands are built with quads of 11” and 16” – We use big balloons (36” Qualatex or 24” Sempertex/TufTex) and small balloons (5”) at the end to accent our garland. We do not use 9” balloons on our garlands.

Tying Options

There are a few different options to tie balloons like 260Qs and curling ribbon or tying the necks of the balloons, but we like to use fishing line to build our garlands – Any brand can be used as long as it is a 40lb test line.  We also use 260Qs to tie accent balloons to the garland and in some occasions to tie the garlands to pillars/columns.

Every surface, specially outdoors, is different.  Most of the time we use fishing line or Q260s wherever possible.  We also use the “H” technique which will be demonstrated in class. 

There are several items that we use to tie off from. We’ll show you which one to use depending on the situation:

1. Command hooks (on glass or smooth vinyl part of windows/doors)
2. Eye hook (in existing hole in mortar or brick/stone)
3. Siding Hooks (on siding)
4. Brick Hooks (on brick)
5. Adhesive Wall Hooks (on brick/stone/cement)
6. Painter’s Tape (on stucco) or Gorilla Tape (on brick/stone)
7. Tent Pegs (to hold steady on non-paved surfaces– i.e., grass, dirt, sand…)
8. Epoxy Coated Rebar (also used to hold steady on non-paved surfaces– i.e., grass, dirt, sand…)

Suppliers

We purchase most of our supply from Surprize Enterprize. They are a Canadian operated wholesale. If you are in Canada, we highly recommend them.  There are two other exceptionally good suppliers that we use when we can’t find what we need at Surprize: Balloon Depot (aka SKS Novelty) and Bargain Balloons. 

We purchase our mini orbz from a supplier in the US — MSR Wholesale Balloons (they’re on the TufTex link below 😉

To find a distributor close to you

Qualatex 

https://us.qualatex.com/en-us/purchase-qualatex-balloons/qualatex-balloon-network-distributors/

TufTex

https://www.maplecityrubber.com/distributors

Sempertex

https://www.sempertex.com/en/where-to-find-us/sempertex-international/?lang=en

Ladders

When necessary, we use the following ladders accordingly:

1. 12-24’ extension ladder (center) 
2. 6’, 8’ and/or 10’ folding ladder (left)
3. Multi-Task Ladder (right)

We use aluminum ladders because they are lighter than wooden or fiber glass ladders, while still maintaining strength and sturdiness.