DYI Hot Air Balloon Photo Booth

For our Enchantment Under the Stars prom I thought it might be fun to have sky and air related decorations..so when someone showed up at my classroom with the side flaps from tri-fold boards,  wondered if maybe they could be used to make a hot air balloon.

I started but cutting a the corners at using masking tape to make a template so they'd all be at the same corners. Then I used spray paint to get a little color going.

After creasing the boards where the angles are, I began using hot glue to get  the edges to stick together. 

I did all of the bottom parts before bending them up and gluing the center section. This At this point, I completed the final two edges to make a barrel shape and then finished up the top flaps. With all the guess work of the angles, I was pleased that it resembled a balloon shape.

The basket was made by weaving strips of cardboard. We used two sdes of a large box, with enough cardboard at the bottom to stand up on it's own. I cut out the spaces n between the vertical slats to be about the same width as the slats themselves.  I stapled the ends of the horizontal strips to the vertical slats and let students weave them in and out. We used brown paper lunch stuffed with newspaper for the sandbags, and I made little pendants that matched the colors of the balloon and spelled out Prom 2026.

I glued three pieces of cardboard to the back of the balloon. The two perpendicular pieces had notches cut into them to slide on the top of the wooden set panel and give the illusion that it is floating in the sky. Painters tape covered the seams and imperfections. The night of the prom, I hot glued a banner, and ropes to the balloon once it was hanging. It's always nice when the process pays off.

 

Painting Party Backdrops

Painting 8 foot high presents for party backdrops this year, made for a quick and easy math lesson for a couple of special needs students. For example:  they had to  divide the panel in half (vertical line at 2 feet in from the side) then divide the 9 inch ribbon in half and make 4.5" marks on either side to place the painters tape. A similar problem was made for the horizontal ribbon. We mixed green paint from yellow and green, so suddenly it was a color theory lesson) and then the painting began. Within a few hours we had simple images that made for a big impact for pictures of Santa at our student party.

We had another couple of large panels and a smaller tree at a seating area for students to take selfies and group shots throughout the party. By the time you add music and food to the decorations, you've got yourself a party! High School students are more likely to participate in karoake and dancing then middle school students, so we set up games like  twister, giant Jenga and Connect Four for smaller group activities. The photo booths were a hit regardless of age. Everyone had a blast!

 

Another fun backdrop for Santa photos included three yard reindeer with twinkling lights, a plywood sleigh made by a friend from church, and cardboard trees that we painted for a dance years ago. This set up was a hit at two separate parties! It's worth putting in a lot of effort into one year of building so that future years are just a matter of repainting and tweaking!