Eastbourne's Hot Air Balloon Festival - review

Sadly due to continued high winds, we didn't actually see any hot air balloons at the Air Balloon Festival on the Sunday but there was still plenty of entertainment.  They had a fun fair and a few stalls, pony rides, dog show, live music, a Harvey's bar with their beautiful and ever popular Dray horses and The Brighton Kite Flyers were there displaying some of their epic kites (at least they were glad of the wind).

Polaroid balloons - party ideas by Bex

A really fun and effective way to decorate a room for a party is with lots of balloons.  I saw an idea on Pinterest using a few gold balloons hovering above a dessert table for a bridal shower and each balloon had a photo hanging from it.  I decided to adapt this for my twins' first birthday party but wanted to actually fill the whole dining room.  I have never been accused of being minimalistic!

Since I designed the twins' nursery with a rainbow theme, we've sort of continued that colour scheme into both their naming ceremony and now 1st birthday.  I bought 100 Belbal balloons in ten different bright colours from Click4Balloons (10 for £1.40) and hired a canister of helium which I picked up locally.

I was offered balloon valves (99p for 100) by the website and I'm so glad I bought them as they saved hours of time fiddling with and tying balloons.  You simply pull each balloon opening over the valve and then push that onto the helium nozzle, which fits perfectly, until the balloon is filled and that's it - it self seals.  They also came with the ribbons already tied on so that saved me even more time!

I ordered 96 Polargram polaroids of the twins (together and separate) taken over their first year.  I cut the ribbons to the length I wanted and taped the photos on before inserting the valves and inflating the balloons on the morning of the party.

I had planned to write a wee note on the bottom of each one, for example "Arriving home - 6 days old" or "Bathtime at 25 weeks", but I ran out of time!

Photo by Take Aim Photography

I hope you'll agree, they look really effective!

Photo by Take Aim Photography

Photo by Take Aim Photography 

Photo by Take Aim Photography

Photo by Take Aim Photography

My son is obsessed with balloons and when his great uncle brought him down in his party outfit and he saw them for the first time, he actually gasped in delight!  I wish I could have gotten a picture of his expression as he pointed at the ceiling of balloons.

Photo by Take Aim Photography

I also have a few ideas for what I can do with the photos now that the party's over so watch this space!

The twins' first birthday party invitation - by Bex

I had a photo in mind for the twins' invitations for
a long time and would have loved to pay someone to take a properly good picture in a studio (as outside isn't really an option any more with the cold, wet weather) but given that I'm already a month late going back to work (I was supposed to be starting my new job today but it's been delayed AGAIN!  Paperwork issues down here are bonkers!) and my maternity pay ran out in March, we've now run out of savings!  Therefore I had to make do with my own skills to try to get the image I had in mind.  It isn't perfect, I may *slightly* regret filling ALL of our walls with various things as I have no plain backdrops to use, but I'm still pleased with it.

This is obviously a blog version without our personal details on but I love the font - Quicksilver.  It was tricky getting both babies happy and comfortable in the basket (kindly on loan from Jude) at the same time and looking at the camera, smiling, etc., etc..  I ended up with a couple of contenders though.  We experimented with placement of the basket, length of balloon ties and having the rug in or not.  I love the colours of the rug but felt in the end it kind of took away from the colours of the balloons.

As you have probably guessed, we're sticking with what has become the colour scheme for the whole of the twins' first year and having rainbow colours again!  (As we did for the nursery decor, playroom decor and naming ceremony decor.)  I'll hopefully have time to write a post about a few birthday party ideas I have.  There will also be a bit of a balloon theme as Kalyan absolutely LOVES balloons!

Anyway, here are the other photos I took of the 'hot air balloon'.