First birthday party ideas: Bubblegum Balloons
Just a quick post from me today because - yay - it's nearly bank holiday weekend and I'm sure everyone has more exciting things planned than reading blogs. But I just had to give a massive plug/mention to Bubblegum Balloons. If you follow me on Instagram you've probably already seen that for Daphne's first birthday we bought her a personalised balloon, filled with confetti. That, along with a car seat, was her only present from us. Bear with me...
When my sister turned one (she's now 32 so that's a loooong time ago) my parents filled her cot with balloons on the morning of her birthday and there's a photo of her waking up completely mesmerised by these rubbery things all around her (luckily not freaked out, as I fear Daph would be, but Sophie is a little bit more fiesty). So for some reason I got it into my head that I wanted to do something similar for Daph - but something maybe a bit less scary.
I can't remember where I heard about Bubblegum Balloons - probably on Instagram, but they are the loveliest UK company and they make beautiful balloons for all kinds of swanky occasions - weddings, press launches, fashion shows etc. It's such a simple but genius idea - STYLISH balloons that you can personalise. Most of them are filled with confetti (as the one we bought Daph was) and have beautiful little 'tails' attached, and are perfectly weighted so that they sit quite happily on the floor (they're filled with helium). Better still, they come tissue wrapped in a simple white box - watching Daph's face as we opened it and the balloon floated to the air was just a magical experience. And she LOVES it.
We've had hours of fun out of it already - her pulling the tail to bring it down, headbutting it, watching it twirl about... it's almost better than her plastic piano (current favourite toy du jour). She laughs her head off when she sees it. We bought her a pretty confetti balloon filled with hearts, clouds and stars, but we did notice after there's a circus one (she LOVES elephants) so I think next year we'll go for that one. It wasn't cheap, at £36, but it was worth every penny. A week on and it's still going strong too!
As well as the helium balloons, Bubblegum also sell super cute mini balloons on sticks and conventional ones you blow up yourself. The customer service was great too - I realised I had ordered Daph's balloon to be delivered the day after Daph's birthday - well done mummy - and they brought it forward without any bother. Have a look at the website - highly recommended!