Hot Air Balloon Costume

Here are the promised instructions on how to make your own hot air balloons for next years Halloween costumes.

These were so easy to make and relatively inexpensive for a Halloween costume. Total cost for 3 hot air balloons was $45! It also could have been a lot cheaper if I had purchased the balloon online ahead of time, but I just bought them at my local party store.

I first came across this idea on Pinterest. Here is the original image that I went off of.

Image Source

There are also instructions here if you want to check them out as well. The original hot air balloon had ribbon on the balloon to make it look a little more like a hot air balloon - but I ended up just liking the plain colors the best for mine. If I had bought white balloons I think I would have been more likely to add ribbon.

To make your very own hot air balloons you will need:

36" Balloon (buy them online, they will be cheaper)
Basket (I found mine at Saver's and other second hand stores)
White/Off-White Rope (or thick yarn) - My rope was 50' and it was the perfect amount for 3
4 Brown Paper Lunch Sacks
4 Plastic Grocery Sacks
Scissors
Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

Instructions:
1. Fill balloons with helium. You can do this at your local party store (it cost $5 just for the helium at my local store) or you can buy a helium tank at Target for $20 and fill them yourself).
2. Cut out the bottom of your basket so that you can step inside and pull it up around your hips/waist.
3. Measure a section of rope from you belly button up and over your shoulder to the middle of your back. Then cut a second section identical to it. Now you will have 2 lengths of rope that match (these will be your straps so that you can "wear" your basket).
4. Try on your basket and see where you would like your straps to attach and then mark it with a marker. Take a glue gun and attach both ends of your two ropes to the inside of the basket. I just eyeballed this part.
5. Grab your filled balloon and measure out a length of rope from the basket up to the balloon. Wear the basket while doing this to make sure that the balloon does not come too low and hit your head. You want the balloon to be floating above you. Once you have your length of rope then cut 2 more of the same so that you have a total of 3.
6. Glue one end of each of the 3 ropes to the inside of your basket. 1 in the very middle of the back of the basket, then the other two in between the front and the side. Together all 3 of them would form a triangular shape.
7. Tie the other ends of the 3 ropes to the base of your balloon. Make sure to pull them tight.
8. Cut the ribbon off of the balloon if there is one and wrap it around the rope to conceal it and make it look a little nicer.
9. Stuff 4 brown paper lunch bags with 4 plastic grocery sacks. Grab your rope/yarn (I used yarn on this part) and tie the lunch bags closed. Then tie the other end of your rope/yarn to the outside of the basket. (I just found holes where I could sneak yarn through and tied them onto the basket). You can cut the yarn at varying lengths to make the sacks hang a little bit more randomly. These end up looking like sandbags!
10. Take a picture of your totally awesome Halloween costume!

I hope someone seriously uses this costume in the future. It was a HUGE hit. Everyone we saw loved it! Thank you Pinterest for bringing this fantastic idea my way!