Printable Balloon Monsters

*We were provided some complimentary Illooms led balloons which were used to create this craft, but all thoughts and ideas are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

My kids adore balloons and we always have some on hand in the cupboard for crafts and rainy days. The girls are fond of making balloon puppies and walking them around the house (they do this often), but I thought it was time for something new. Monsters are a favourite theme of ours at the moment so I designed up some monster parts that can be printed out and stuck onto balloons mix-and-match style to create different critters. You could use them make decorations for Halloween, monster parties or just for fun at any time of year. This printable can be used with any balloons, but we were sent some LED light-up balloons by illooms to test out so we have used those to make our monsters glow in the dark. It added a bit of a wow factor and the kids thought they were great. You can read our full review of illooms at the end of the post, but for now on to the craft:

You will need

• Balloons (to achieve the glow in the dark effect use illooms LED lit balloons)
• This monster parts template
• Scissors and a glue stick
• Curling ribbon or string and masking tape if you want to hang them from the roof

How to

Print out the monster parts from the template provided.

Blow up your balloons and tie them so they are ready to be turned into monsters.

Pictured below are the balloons we used – unlike your average balloon, illooms include an LED light in each balloon, which illuminates when activated by the easy-pull tab, lasting for up to 15 hours.

Cut out the pieces you want to use for your monster. It might help to arrange them flat on the table first to see how they look before attaching them to your balloon.

Glue on the monster parts, being sure to keep the balloon tie at the top so that you can hang them up once you’re done. The glue stick works great for sticking the paper parts on to the balloon when you use standard A4 photocopy paper, but I did find that after a day or two the arms and horn went a bit floppy and didn’t look as good. If you want them to last a bit longer use a heavier paper or card stock, but beware that the glue stick might not be strong enough to hold heavy paper and you might need to resort to double sided tape or sticky tape.

These are the monsters I made:

To hang them tie the curling ribbon to the top and then stick it with a masking tape to the roof, a good quality tape shouldn’t rip the paint off when you take them down.

We think they’re ugly but cute! Here they are by night…

Wooo, scary! The girls made some too, and loved having them suspended from the roof in their bedroom by night – they help to keep those less-friendly monsters in the closet and under the bed away!

Our Illooms Review

Anything that glows in the dark is a hit at our place, so the novelty factor of using these led-lit balloons was enough to get the kids excited – they loved them. I did find that they didn’t all work and light up as they were supposed to, but if we blew them up anyway and then gave the end a bit of a tap it was usually enough to get them working properly. For safety reasons they are not recommended for use with helium (which would have been cool) and the age recommendation on the front of the packet says 8+ (my own kids are 6 and 7). This might be because there is a safety risk when popping the balloons because of the light inside them, but my girls are fearful of the loud bang from balloons popping anyway so this was not a worry with them. Overall the glow in the dark factor was pretty awesome and they were fun for something different to try. They also come in cute novelty varieties such as alien-shaped, marble effect, faces and a cute pink doll-face one that looks like a bowling pin.

For Australian readers, illooms balloons can be found at Big W, Kmart and Woolworths (in the party aisle!). For international readers here is the Amazon link.

More monster craft ideas from The Craft Train and our blogging friends around the web

• Make some cute monster egg carton treat holders by The Craft Train
• Create a cool box-headed sea monster mask by The Craft Train
• I love these adorable monster play dough mats by Picklebums
• Here is a fun monster slime activity by Paging Fun Mums
• Here are some cute monster stick puppets by I Heart Crafty Things

You can also find lots of cool monster crafts (plus loads of other scary things!) on our Halloween board on Pinterest.