More than a year ago, we were given these balloon bags by the founders of Thomas’ House, Gaye and Roy McPhee, along with some other items.  I had put the bags in a very secure place in our store room…so secure that I promptly forgot about them!

While doing some necessary ‘spring cleaning’ I came across them and immediately thought of using them in the pool.  Along with the bags, there were lots of balloons so we got to work blowing them up.  The very cool thing about these hand crafted unique bags are that you easily insert a big balloon inside and then blow the balloon up.  The balloon is now relatively safe from harm in their little cocoon and they will not blow away in the wind!  For the pool they were great because if the balloon pops -which inevitably it did- then the broken pieces stayed in the bag and were not harmful to our filter.

The process is quite simple as demonstrated here.

But what we found out is that if a bag of balloons sit in a plastic bag inside another plastic bag in a hot storage room for over a year, they become very delicate and loose their elasticity, thus popping as you blow- but strangely enough, only the grey colour ones popped while blowing them up.

Once we got enough blown up to satisfy everyone, it was play time!!

Their durability was great as they were kicked, tossed, used as boxing gloves, and jumped on!

But as all good things eventually come to an end…slowly one by one, the balloons succumbed to the intense play and deflated until only a few sacred balloon balls were left to be fiercely guarded or used to as pillows and the pool play wore them out.

The three remaining ballon balls were safely put away for the next pool day while all the deflated bags were washed and hung to dry -awaiting the next Phnom Penh market trip so we can purchase (fresh) new large balloons!

and so the cycle will continue…