From: BALLOONAIR@aol.com
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 10:01:16 EDT
Subject: Re: balloondeco-d Digest V00 #102
To: balloondeco@balloonhq.com

<< Lindy asked for ideas for decorating the dance floor at a Wizard of Oz >>

Have everybody dress like Munchkins and then give them all a helium balloon...
(Oh Boy! Am I gonna get flamed for that one!)

Seriously though,  I just now finished the nightly ritual of reading the 
latest chapter of the Oz books to my son -- we're in the middle of the 5th Oz 
book.

Here are a few ideas from several Oz themed parties I've done.  Once we got a 
light colored linoleum floor covering and painted it with a transparent 
yellow paint to make the entire dance floor look like yellow bricks.  - Very 
cool!

Centerpieces - we had a 3' helium balloon with a Hot Air net and a basket 
with cutouts of Dorothy & friends.  Another time we bought some cheap ladies 
shoes and 
spray-glued red glitter on them to use as props for the centerpieces.
The spiral-corkscrew design (6 individual balloons attached at equal 
intervals around a 12" diameter base - round mirrors or cardboard circles - 
each balloon a little higher than the next so they ascend in a rising spiral) 
using rainbow colors would look very nice.

Dance floor canopy - a 6-arch tunnel (rainbow colors) would be nice and 
inexpensive - 6 pearl arches right to the floor anchored with yellow bricks.  
An alternative would be to do a full scale canopy with the columns done to 
look like apple trees.  I've always wanted to do the talking trees - planting 
the receiver of a baby monitor in the tree and having someone with the 
broadcaster hiding somewhere inconspicuously where they could see anyone 
approaching the tree and then surprising the unsuspecting victim with "DON'T 
TOUCH MY APPLES."  If you're good with designing & building a precision 
canopy you could probably write "SURRENDER DOROTHY" in balloons in the 
canopy, or as a backdrop in SDS.

The Emerald City could be constructed with columns - If you were at IBAC in 
Phoenix you saw the Castle they constructed at final night which said 
"Orlando."  You could scale that down a bit.  A castle (or Emerald City) is 
easy to make out of columns - just use bigger balloons for the top few 
clusters, optional - invert a single balloon and cool glue or belly-button it 
on top of the column so the narrow, teardrop-shaped knot end of the balloon 
is up.

Tom Dybowski (is he still around?) made a set of Oz characters out of 
balloons several years ago at an IBAC or NABA convention - they were very 
cute - basic balloon characters - use your imagination to figure out a lion, 
scarecrow, and tin man.  Be careful if you're making Dorothy - it's very hard 
(but not impossible) to make a balloon person with a "pretty face" out of 
balloons, Dorothy, Snow White, little Mermaid, etc., look really bad if the 
face is "ugly".  Consider drawing the face on a single balloon rather than 
constructing the features of the face out of balloons, or get Jim Skistimis 
to help you - he's a master!


     O~     Danny Magowan
O~          Balloon AffAIRs
   O~       Syracuse NY