Friday 22 February 2013

Beating Inflation–A Tutorial

wedding balloonWhen Mel and Shane got married in our church a few years back, they had balloons all down the aisle.

This weekend, two more friends are getting married [in another church] and decided on a similar arrangement. They have managed to order the helium balloons in the right colours – but there was a problem about getting the weights which keep them from floating to the ceiling. Could I help?

DSCF5201I just happened to have a balloon weight in the kitchen […it was a Teachers’ Christmas Meal in 2011, and my friends had ‘liberated’ the balloons and tied them to their wrists for the disco. The waitress was going to throw the weight away, and I asked for it. This is why my house is full of clutter…] I unwrapped the weight, and found it weighed 161 grams.DSCF5203 Bob and I thought hard…DSCF5204

We needed to recreate the small pyramid shapes

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We took 18 silicone pudding moulds into the garage and gave them a light coating of sunflower oil.

Then Bob mixed the concrete and we made a batch of concrete ‘puddings’

 

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When they had set, I cut out some circles of thin foil [these were quite large – about 12” in diameter] and bent 36 bits of wire in pairs [these were twist ties which came with a roll of plastic bags]

I used one tie to make a loop [to attach the balloon strings] and the other was to gather up the foil round the concrete lump [which looked rather like a little sandcastle]DSCF5215DSCF5216DSCF5218

I decided against cutting the top into fronds – but think our eighteen home-made balloon weights look just as good as the shop-bought ones. And they cost a lot less than £1 each!

7 comments:

  1. You are always full of good ideas. But where is the photo of Ang discoing .....with balloon??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Disco dancing just isn't my thing - so there wouldn't be a photo to publish!

      Delete
  2. What a great workaround!

    This is why I always keep every twist-tie I can find ... you never know when they might come in handy.

    (Where did all those pudding moulds come from?)

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a smartie you are! And thrifty too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You two are unbelievable. How many pudding moulds???

    ReplyDelete

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