I don't think We are in Kansas anymore.

Hi everyone, I am a guest designer on the BUGBYTES. Today I wanted to share with you a project I have been working on for a couple of days. This post is rather long and it doesn't involve any cricut cuts, so I apologize in advance, but after I got through the thought process and prototypes, it came together rather fast, so I wanted to share.

I wanted to make a hot air balloon out of paper, but how in the world do you even know where to begin. I googled it and all I found was tissue paper hot air balloons. So I thought if I had a pattern I could sew it together, wrong. Then I thought if I scanned my paper in and printed it out on fabric, I could still sew it together, wrong. This took me the better part of last Saturday and after all that time I still didn't have anything usable. When I went to bed Sat. night the wheels were turning and then I had a mental head slap. Of coarse just use wide sticky tape and piece it together that way. Now maybe all of you are way smarter then me and would have thought of that first, but it was like an Ah Ha moment for me. So Sunday afternoon I cut my pieces out again and with 1/2" wide terrifically tacky tape, I pieced the balloon part of the hot air balloon together, this took all of about 15 minutes, like I said, DUH! So, here are the steps to getting a fabulous hot air balloon curves and all!

Here are the first 2 prototypes, the one on the left is the one that I scanned the paper into the computer and printed it out on fabric sheets, my daughter said it looks like a demented pumpkin. The second one is where I tried to sew the paper pieces together right side together. When I tried to open up the pieces the paper tore. Both are going in the trash.

Pattern Piece gotten on a website for actual hot air balloon building. As soon as I get a chance I will post the file on my website. It was a small Pic that I enlarged.

Pattern piece and cardstock cut from it. You will need 8 all together. My pattern piece did not have a point on it, I added that.

1/2" wide tacky tape.

1st piece with tacky tape being applied.

Here is the under side of the piece. Make sure you burnish the tacky tape on, I used the plastic handle of my scissors.

Here is the second piece getting ready to be put on, and the first piece right side up.

1st and 2nd piece being stuck together right sides up.

Both pieces put together.

Piece turned over, burnish the tape every time you add a new piece of cardstock and DON'T take off the other piece of plastic on the tacky tape, just leave them on.

Third piece put on. Burnish, Burnish, Burnish.

Here it is almost complete! The last piece is kind of tricky because you are fitting it in, You just have to finagle it a bit. Get something long that you can fit into the hot air balloon once the last piece is on so you can burnish it. I used a long screw driver and burnished it with the plastic handle. Burnishing helps make the edges flat against the tape.

Here it is all put together, it's ok if you have small gaps on the edges, you are going to cover them with cord or ribbon, your choice.

Here are the Tim Holtz pins I used on the balloon to attach the ropes with.

Balloon complete after the ribbon and decorations are attached.

Here is my finished balloon. I used Graphic 45 paper the Magic of Oz. Kind of apropos, isn't it?

Once I got the balloon part done, I was so exited that instead of just making a regular square box for the basket, I wove strips of cardstock and made a woven basket. I also added "sand bags".

This pic is the leftover fabric I scanned added as "patches" to the balloon. I didn't want the time spent scanning in fabric only to not be able to use the fabric balloon to go to waste.

Wouldn't these make cute decoration hanging from the ceiling for a wedding, baby shower, birthday? The possibilities are endless.

Thanks so much for putting up with my long post, and thanks Pam for letting me guest design.

Beth.