Is there anything more precious to a Grandma & Grandpa than their grandchildren? My kids and I made this Balloon Art for Grandma and Grandpa, it is SOOO easy and fun! I have made these prints available so that you can make your own too! We have Young Grandparents and Older Grandparents available as well as other sayings and custom options to fit your specific needs!
The supplies that you need will vary depending on how you want your finished piece. The prints come in 11×14 and 16×20. We used the 11×14 size in the Black & White style so that we could color it ourselves. A few things to consider with size, is that the 11×14 size will hold up to 35 Balloons, while the 16×20 size can hold up to approximately 120 balloons. If you choose to do fingerprints instead of balloons, you can easily double those numbers. We chose 5 Colors of Balloons (they come in packs of 5) and we used a fine Sharpie Marker (since doing this tutorial, I have found that the “Sharpie Fine Pen” looks BETTER than the Sharpie that I have pictured, it doesn’t bleed as much). We also used a mixture of flat glue dots and raised Adhesive foam circles.
My 9 year old daughter colored the print. I really wanted it to have that homemade look and I thought it would be special to have her do it.
Next, I had all of the kids pick a balloon to sign their name on (again, another handmade touch that I think makes it so special!).
My 3 year old’s name was not legible, haha, so I just added his name to the bottom of the balloon.
I obviously don’t have enough kids to fill all 11 strings on the print, so at this point, what I did was take the balloons with their names on it and I placed them (without gluing them yet!) where I thought they looked good.
I wanted my kids’ balloons to be raised and to fill in with blank balloons, so I put raised foam adhesive circles on all of their balloons adhere them to the print.
I then filled in the rest of the strings with blank balloons using flat glue dots.
I think it turned out so cute! What do you think? Check out my tips below for other ways to make this art.
If you want your Balloons raised, like I did, here are 2 ideas for you.
- If you want it in a regular frame, then you need to add a spacer between the glass and print. I just cut some strips of foam core and glued them to the glass (like pictured below).
- The other nice option for raised balloons is to purchase a Shadow Box Frame like the next picture below.
Try using a stamp pad and finger prints for another fun and very personalized look! Here are a couple things to consider:
- Use Pigment Ink instead of dye, they cost a little more, but the colors will be more vibrant and will not fade nearly as quickly! The stamp pads that I recommend are available for purchase here.
- If you do not have enough people for how many strings you have (or to make it look full enough), have each child do all 5 fingers, just have them each use their own color so that you can tell them apart.
- Try having them sign their name on top of their fingerprints. I love this!
