It’s no secret that I love Alt Summit, so when the chance rolled around to be involved with creating an element for one of the parties at this last Summer 2015 session, I was all in! My friend Janssen of Everyday Reading and I submitted an idea that was accepted, then we were assigned to work on a “fun photo element” that would provide instagramamble moments (I’m @livefreemiranda)! Janssen ended up not being able to attend the conference, but we brought my darling little sister Emmy on board to help and we brainstormed this fun, whimsical balloon hanging basket chair with fresh florals where people could sit, snap, and share!
Hayneedle sponsored the party, so we got to choose from their huge selection of swings, and we loved this woven basket-style chair to echo the picnic theme of the party. The balloons added celebration and fun, and the fresh florals kept it classy and whimsical, rather than looking like a children’s birthday explosion.
We sourced all of the sizes and colors of balloons at Zurchers, which has a huge selection both locally in Salt Lake, as well as online. My sweet, dear, wonderful mother blew up all of them in our garage with an air compressor while Emmy and I attended the conference (and I spoke, and appeared on KSL Studio 5 that same day!)
When it was time to set up for the party, we needed to string the balloons together, which I did by tying them in a row onto a piece of long twine, so they stayed hooked together as we wound them around the chair’s support bar. Then we stuck baby balloons on with packing tape, and began tucking greenery in.
Emmy grabbed all of the flowers at Trader Joe’s up the street from the hotel, and we cut and wired them into flat arrangements to tie onto the handle, and lay on the ground next to the chair. They turned out incredible, and the whole thing looked just as we imagined.
Of course, the ballon + floral combination was inspired by Brittany at The House that Lars Built and her incredible Balloon Arch Tutorial. I first saw this style of “Lars Balloons” at A Midsummer Mingle last year and basically want to use them all the time.
It was a crazy, busy two hours pulling all of the elements to the ballon and floral basket chair together, but it turned out perfectly! Happy dance!
(And then it rained on the party, we ended up dragging it over to a new location near a different door, and it survived happily for lots of instagramable party moments!!)
