Make Your Own Balloon Boy Costume for Under Two Dollars

Here’s how to make your own Balloon Boy Costume for under two dollars.  With the exception of the Balloon Boy mylar balloon and balloon ribbon, you should have all the other costume pieces around your house.  Name tag software is free. You need one pair of scissors or a knife to make the one required cut constructing the costume.

Notice there are no graphics with this article.  Visualize an 18 inch silver mylar balloon turned sideways with an aluminum foil gondola taped to the bottom of the balloon.  You’ve got it.

This Balloon Boy costume includes a balloon, balloon tethers, a gondola, name tag, and optional cardboard box (to hide in).

Assembly time (assuming the balloon does not fly away) about 15-20 minutes.

You will need: 

• 1 silver mylar balloon inflated with helium
• Balloon ribbon (included with the balloon)
• Aluminum foil
• Adhesive tape (Scotch tape)
• Pair of scissors or knife
• Tape measure or ruler
• Name tag (Download free Avery name badge templates)
• Box (optional)

How to Make the Balloon Boy Balloon and Tethers

Step 1:  Get a helium filled 18 inch silver mylar balloon with attached balloon ribbon.  Cost:  $1.99.  These are available in a lot of stores.  A consistent source (and where we got our balloon) is Party City, balloon number 104, an 18 inch solid silver Anagram Extra Lite.  Wherever you get your balloon, call before you go to make sure the plain silver mylar (sometimes called “foil”) balloon is available.  If you are trying to get a plain silver 36 inch mylar balloon from a retail source, good luck.  For plain mylar, it seems 18 inches is the maximum size for off the shelf retail offerings.  There are a lot of larger balloons with mermaids, happy birthday wishes, star shapped balloons, but you want the silver on silver plain balloon.

Ask for silver balloon ribbon when you get your balloon.  Using the Party City example again, balloon handlers tie off the balloon, float the balloon to the ceiling, then cut the ribbon so you have almost an almost floor-to-ceiling connection.  This is more than enough ribbon for the Balloon Boy costume.

Step 2:  For your workspace, make sure you are indoors, under a ceiling less than ten feet high, and there is nowind blowing.  Do not do try to work on this outdoors (we know how well that plan went).  If a fan is on, turn it off.  Gnivas recommends the single story ceiling in case the balloon gets away.  It’s a lot easier to grab when it is closer to you than if it floats up to a high beam.

Step 3:  Gather the tape, foil, scissors, and tape measure or ruler and put them on a flat surface in your
workspace.

Step 4:  How to make the balloon tethers.  You want to anchor the balloon at two points.  Otherwise, it floats
sideways (compared to how the Balloon Boy balloon flew across Colorado). 
A.  Measure 36 inches down the ribbon from where the ribbon is tied to the balloon. 
B.  Cut the ribbon at the 36 inch point.  Now you have a lot of ribbon on the floor and 36 inches of ribbon attached to the balloon.
C.  Tear off a piece of tape (4 inches is fine).  Put the tape on the end of the balloon ribbon, then tape the
ribbon on the balloon seam opposite the first tie point.
D.  Tie the longer piece of ribbon to the middle of the ribbon hanging down from the balloon.  You do not have to get fancy with the knot.  The good thing about the ribbon is if the knot is not exactly where you want it to be, the ribbon material is smooth enough to move the knot on the tethers.

How to Make the Balloon Boy Costume Gondola

Step 5:  The balloon boy costume gondola consists of a gondola floor and gondola sides.  It is made
out of aluminum foil and tape.  That’s it. The foil is so thin it can be torn or cut.
A.  Make the balloon gondola floor.  Tear off about 12 inches of aluminum foil from the roll.  Place the piece of foil on a flat surface.  Make a circle with a 2.5 inch diameter (diameter is from one side of a circle through
the middle of the circle to the other side of the circle).  Or, take a 12 ounce soda can and press the bottom of the can on top of the foil.  That will make a circular indentation about 2.5 inches in diameter.  Tear or cut out the circle and set it aside, shiny side down.
B.  Make the balloon boy gondola sides.  Tear or cut a piece of foil 10 inches long and one inch wide.  Fold the foil (shiny side facing out) into a circle.  Match the size of this circle to the size of the gondola floor. 
You should have a little overhang for the sides.  Take a piece of tape and connect the sides together with the tape.  Put the tape on the inside of the foil circle.
C.  Join the balloon boy gondola floor and the sides.  You can probably see where this is going.  Take a couple of pieces of tape to join together the floor and sides.  Tear off a piece of tape and form it to the floor and wall sides inside the gondola.  Do the same with another piece of tape.  If you are feeling adventurous, use a third  piece of tape for more adhesion inside the gondola.

Step 6:  How to join the Balloon Boy gondola to the Balloon Boy balloon.  You guessed it–tape the outside of the gondola underneath the middle of the balloon between the two tethers.  Use two or three pieces of tape with part of the tape attached to the gondola and the other part attached to the balloon.  The bottom of the balloon becomes the ceiling for the gondola.  Yes, at this point you can see the tape on the outside of the balloon and gondola.  It is a costume, after all.

There you go–Balloon Boy balloon with tethers and gondola.

Optional Name Tag 

Cost:  Free.  Use this link to get an Avery name tag template.  Download one you like.  The 4 x 6 single tag (fourth choice on the first template page) is popular.  You do not have to have Avery name tags to feed into your printer in order to get a name tag for this costume.  Print it out on plain paper and tape it to a shirt.  If  you use a box, tape it to the box.  Name tag suggestions:  Use red ink for “Hi, My Name Is” and black for FALCON. Or, leave off the “Hi, My Name Is” and go with a simple “BALLOON BOY” in black all capital letters.

Optional box 

Cost: Free.  Find a box that fits the person who will wear the box.  For trick-or-treaters, the box seems a bit much.  It will be hard to hold out the candy bag, make sure the balloon is not hitting a porch overhang or tree branch, and deal with the box all at the same time.

Wearing the Balloon Boy costume

Whether you tie the balloon to a belt loop, a rubber band around the wrist, or someplace else, make sure it is low enough to clear porch covers, tree limbs, and other overhangs. 

Teachable moment 

Here’s a link to a Popular Science article on the science of helium balloons.  Based on the size of the Balloon Boy balloon, the writer makes very generous assumptions on the size of the balloon, the amount of helium and the weight of the six-year-old boy.  The author still finds it hard to get the boy off the ground, much less see him go airborne on a multiple hour journey thousands of feet in the air and miles and miles downwind from his home in Fort Collins.

Need a bigger balloon?

Yes, there is a Balloon Boy Costume in a Box with a 36 inch balloon.  Price starts about ten times more than the $1.99 DIY costume described in this article.  Shipping extra.