The garden looks its best about twenty minutes after the sun goes. The problem is that is also when everyone stops being able to see it. These are 51 cm clear bobo balloons with a warm white fairy-light wire coiled inside, so they hang in the trees and over the table like something lit from within. In daylight they are almost invisible. At dusk the garden turns on.

Why It Stands Out

• Garden decoration that works after dark — most outdoor decorations disappear at night. This one only starts then.
• They look like light, not like balloons — clear balloons, so all you see is a floating sphere of warm white.
• No power point needed — battery operated lights on a 3 m wire, so they go up a gum tree or over the back lawn where there is no power.
• Air or helium, your choice — filled with air they hang from a branch or a pergola beam. As helium balloons they float, and you tether them to the table.
• Big at 51 cm — one over each table does the job. This is not party-bag stuff.
• Five or ten in a set — five for a table, ten for the whole yard.

Where to Use Them

• Strung through the trees for a garden party — the job they do best. Jacaranda, frangipani, anything with low branches.
• Over the outdoor table — a balloon centrepiece hanging above rather than a table centrepiece sitting on it, so nobody has to look around it.
• Along the pergola or the verandah — spaced a metre apart down the beam.
• The Australian Christmas table — which is outside, under the pergola, at 6pm. Christmas table decorations and outdoor christmas decorations that suit a hot evening instead of a northern one.
• A New Year's Eve party in the backyard — they photograph beautifully and they are still going at midnight.
• Birthday decorations, engagements and wedding decorations — the same trick works for any evening do in a garden.

How It Works

1. Stretch the flat balloon first — pull it out sideways, then top to bottom. This is what stops it tearing.
2. Inflate it with a pump — electric, foot or hand pump, or a helium tank. Slow down once it reaches about 33 cm and stop at 51.
3. Twist and knot the neck — about 2 cm down from the inlet, twist, then tie it off.
4. Wind the light wire around it — spiral the 3 m string over the outside, switch on, and let the tail hang.

How to Use Them

1. Do it the day of, not the night before — they hold air well but they are best fresh.
2. Inflate in the shade — air expands in the heat, and a balloon filled hard in a cool garage will strain at 35°C on the lawn.
3. Hang from the knot, not the light wire — use ribbon or fishing line through the tie.
4. Space them about a metre apart — they read as a constellation rather than a clump.
Tip: leave them slightly under-inflated, around 45 cm rather than the full 51. They keep their shape better through a hot afternoon and they are far less likely to split on a branch.

NB: a pump is not included and these cannot be blown up by mouth — the neck is too narrow and the plastic too stiff. Any balloon pump works. Keep burst pieces away from children under three.

Care and Maintenance

• Bring them in if rain is coming — the battery box is not weatherproof.
• Take the light wire off to reuse it — the strings outlast the balloons several times over.
• Deflate and store flat — a knotted balloon can be untied, let down and packed away.
• Out of the midday sun — direct summer sun is what pops them, not the night air.

Specifications

What's Included

• 5 or 10 × Clear bobo balloons, 51 cm
• 5 or 10 × Warm white LED light strings with battery boxes

Before you order: you will need a balloon pump, and inflate them in the shade on the day.