How would you like to create a super easy New Years Eve, birthday, or graduation DIY party pleaser? Balloon drops are always a big hit with kids and my tutorial will help you successfully create your own DIY balloon drop for your next party.

I know what you might be thinking: "this will just be another giant Pinterest fail". But no, it won't be! Not this time. Why? Because I'm here to give you very specific step-by-step instructions in this article, and a video tutorial HERE, on how to make an epic DIY balloon drop for your next party!

Now, I can't take credit for coming up with this idea. I have Pinterest to thank for steering me down this road, but in my attempts to find out how to create this DIY balloon drop, I couldn't find any good tutorials. So....after experimenting a bit and getting it right I came up with a super cheap and easy way to create a DIY balloon drop at home. So, take a look and give it a try!

DIY Ballon Drop Supplies:

Best Balloons Assorted Color For Party 12 Inches Bulk 100 pcs Helium Quality Latex">Balloons (we purchased a bag of 72)

Giant trash bags (to hold the blown up balloons)

Balloon pump (handheld or electric if you need to inflate a lot of balloons)

Super thin, cheap table cloth (we used 54" x 108" rectangle)

Scissors

Curling Ribbon

Packaging tape

Thumb tacks

The 7 steps to successfully creating this DIY party pleaser:

1. Inflate the balloons:

Since you will be inflating several dozen balloons (or more), I highly recommend either a handheld pump or an electric one if you're throwing a much bigger party and need several hundred balloons. I've provided links to pumps in the supply list

2. Bag the balloons:

Trust me, if you are inflating a room full of balloons and you have children wandering around, you will definitely want to contain the balloons quickly! Several of our balloons went missing, or were inadvertently popped, before we realized the importance of bagging the balloons. Ideally, you'll want several very large garbage bags (bigger than your normal trash bags). These can hold a dozen balloons whereas a regular trash bag can only hold about 6 balloons.

3. Cut the tablecloth:

Depending on the size of your room, you can choose to cut the tablecloth lengthwise or width. Either way, you will need to fold the tablecloth in half and cut it down the center (we cut ours lengthwise because we were dropping the balloons in our hallway). **Hint: cutting it lengthwise allows for a longer balloon drop.

4. Fold the cut halves of the tablecloth:

Before cutting slits, fold the two halves of the tablecloth so that one half lays on top of the other half, with the cut edges flush with each other. Smooth the tablecloth out and line up the edges to make the creation of slits/holes easier.

5. Cut slits in the tablecloth

Other websites/blogs suggest using a hole puncher to create the slits, but this did not work for me for some reason. My hole punch may be dull. I ended up using scissors to cut small slits and that worked great. To create the slits/holes, start about 1 inch in from the side and bottom edges. I created a slight fold to cut the slit (no larger than the tip of my pinky finger). Continue cutting slits approximately 2 inches apart all along the edge of the tablecloth. Make sure these slits are about an inch in from the edge and make sure to cut through both halves of the tablecloth.

6. Stitch up the tablecloth:

Once all the slits or holes are made, take the curling ribbon (or yarn) and start at one end of the tablecloth and thread it through the holes. If you are not sure how to do this, watch the YouTube video we created to accompany this article.

Once you have stitched the tablecloth, be sure to leave a "tail" on both ends at least a foot or two long (this tail serves as the pull cord to ultimately drop the balloons). The first time I did this, I tied off the one end that would not serve as the pull cord for the balloon drop. We found out that it just made it harder to release the balloons and that even if we didn't tie of the one end, everything somehow stays intake and didn't come undone.

7. Tack up the tablecloth and fill with balloons:

I have seen several variations of how people hang up their DIY balloon drop net. Some have done it on a ceiling fan (which works fine with tape and if you're just doing it for your own kids. In which case, you may actually want a round table cloth). Because we were planning our balloon drop for a larger group, we used thumb tacks/push pins to attach our balloon drop "net" to the ceiling. Tape simply would not hold it up. It kept falling down.

Before hanging up the tablecloth, open it up so that the stitching is now in the middle. As you hang it up, remember to leave enough slack in the table cloth so that you can fill the top with the balloons. We ended up loosening the stitching at one end a bit to fill with balloons and then tightened the stitching afterwords.

Also, tape up the loose ends so that they are out of reach of eager little hands who might accidentally release the balloons before the proper time.

8. Release the balloon drop!!!

The part everyone has been waiting for! It's sure to please and delight everyone (especially it's creators who can mark this as a HUGE Pinterest win!). As you pull the string, it will either slip right out of the tablecloth, or rip it, releasing the balloons down upon everyone below!

And, there you have it! Eight simple steps toward creating the most epic New Years Eve, birthday, or graduation party crowd pleaser! Be sure to watch our video to get a good visual idea of how this all works!

Don't forget to watch our YouTube Balloon Drop tutorial:

If you try this at home, we'd love to hear how it works out for you and your party! Please comment below.

This article was originally posted on blog.playacrossamerica.com