But the plain, solid-colored helium variety costs almost a dollar each! I headed to my local Party City to see if I could find a solution that was more affordable.
I purchased the Twisty Balloon Animals kit manufactured by the National Latex Company (retail $7.99). The kit comes with twenty balloons, an instruction booklet, and a hand pump. The best part of the kit is the hand pump, which is reusable. The balloon animals I produced using the kit were a great success (read my article in Entertaining/Parties for the full story).
After finishing off the balloons in the kit, I searched around for the best deal on bulk balloons, and found it online at the Oriental Trading Company. One bag of 144 balloons cost $7.95. Although the balloons turned out to be fine, I’ve purchased other items on this Web site that were questionable in terms of quality, so I looked around for some other options.
I found Ziggos Balloons (look under “tying balloons”) and Clowning Around. I haven’t purchased anything on these sites yet, but I intend to try them in the future. Let me know if any of you have any experiences (good or bad) with them.
Some good books about balloon tying that I found in an initial foray to my local Barnes & Noble, while trying to expand my repertoire:
- The Great Balloon Party Book by Aaron Flanders. Aaron Flanders has two other books on balloons (Balloon AnimalsMore Balloon Animals). He apparently has a lot of love for balloon animals. Most of these books come with a kit (a hand pump and twenty or so balloons), and retail for about $10.
- Balloon Sculpting: A Fun and Easy Guide to Making Balloon Animals, Toys and Games by Bruce Fife
- The Ultimate Balloon Book & Kit by Shar Levine & Michael Ouchi
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