I bought this because I wanted the balloons. I didn't want the clown, nor the two little blue birds (not pictured above because they had already gone into the Million Little Blue Birds Container), so €8 seemed quite expensive just for balloons - but if that's the price, then that was what I had to pay. However, once I brought my purchase home, I realised that actually it was 100% worth the money. More about that in a moment!
All the balloons were in two halves, with the balloon strings separate. I opened the box when there was already food and drink on the table. 'I'll just put these balloons together first,' I said.
'I'll
just...'? The strings didn't really want to stay where I put them, and in order to snap the two half-balloons together, I had to stand up and lean my weight upon them. It took me quite some time. I think that if you buy this for a child, you will need to help them make the balloons!
If I had been sensible, I would have laid out all the balloons and strings before I started putting them together, and decided which coloured strings would go with which balloon. I wasn't sensible. I just grabbed the nearest balloon and string, and then the next; then thought it would be cool if the football balloon had a pink string - and then I looked at what strings I'd got left, and wished I'd done it differently. I tried to take the first two apart again, but (not surprisingly, after the force used to put them together) I couldn't do it.
The balloon stand has seven holes, but there are only six balloons - I guess one has already been sold. I did already have one balloon, though, so I added that to the set.
Actually, I want children to
hold the balloons, so the number of holes in the stand doesn't really matter. I didn't want the stand, I didn't want the birds, I didn't want the clown ....it was this point that I thought, '€8 for 6 balloons....'
And then it struck me what lovely hair that clown has. And I knew just who would like to dye his hair that colour:
And, really, ALL the parts of the clown are useful.
Left to right:
- Clown's face (she's going to offer face painting to children)
- Clown's jersey
- Clown's oversized coat
- Clown's stripey trousers
And finally, that balloon stand is a wonderful Flower Stand.
So now I'm thinking that this is a great value for money set. I'm really pleased with all that I've got from it.