Welcome to the Jungle — Lauralloons

This weekend I made an EPIC tiger birthday balloon wall.

I have had the honor to make birthday balloons for this little boy and his family for the last 3 years! It is so much fun working with the theme and coming up with something to top the previous years. For this birthday there was an animal theme and the mom sent me a picture of a tiger balloon sculpture...but not just any picture! This glorious sculpture was none other than a competition piece in the World Balloon Convention 2014. It took a team of people, many (many) hours to create this stunning piece. Ok. Well I can’t do that exactly. What can I do? To the Google! To the Balloon Groups on FB! Find all the pictures! Get all the ideas! I came up with two main design ideas. One idea was to make a tiger sculpture, not as elaborate or as large as the original inspiration, but cool nonetheless. And then I had another idea. What if I made a balloon wall to be the jungle and had the tiger look like it was leaping out of it? With a bit of a mockup the party mom agreed to go with the wall route and I got to planning.

This wall idea excited me for a few reasons. 1) The framing would not be difficult. A few regular bases and poles on the back of the wall would be enough for the agreed upon size. 2) Details. With focusing on the tiger head and arms I felt that I could spend more time designing and building those. 3) Ease of transport. I have a tiny car and one of my main concerns is building designs that are easy to transport and deliver. Plus building things that are easy for me to move also means it will be easy for my customers to move after their party.

The wall is an organic quick link wall that I added twisted leaves and vines to. The finished size was just over 3 ft tall and just a bit wider than 4 ft. The tiger head and arms were attached as another wall ‘duplet’. This allowed for both super easy transport (head and arms come right off) but also allowed the arms to be fairly ‘posable’. The result was a super fun mix of twisting and decor. You don’t see too many tigers in Duluth, MN! (Unless of course you go to the Lake Superior Zoo and check out Taj the Amur tiger!)

Head and arms easily detach for ease of transport!

Overall I would say this might be one of my favorite pieces yet! Balloons are such an amazing medium. Anything is possible with balloons!