Photo by Kelsey Shoemaker.
Juliette Molina’s purple balloon baseball hat is pulled low over her eyes while she scrolls through her phone meticulously. She searches through webpage after webpage in search of just the right item for her latest client — a toddler with an affinity for Winnie the Pooh’s Tigger.
“He isn’t interested in any of the other characters from the Hundred Acre Wood,” Molina says. “And sourcing Tigger balloons is not the easiest.”
Molina is the creative mind behind Sweet Celebrations, a balloon decor company based out of her Winnetka Heights home. She offers the “full gamut” of balloon art, from traditional balloon arches to trendy backdrops for baby showers and birthdays.
Her passion for the unconventional medium is rooted in her own childhood, when Molina’s mother went above and beyond for each of her children’s birthdays every year.
“I just remember feeling really loved, and I remember the amount of effort that my mom went to to celebrate me and my siblings,” Molina says. “So when it came time to start doing birthdays for my own kiddos, I was just like, ‘All right, I’ve got to do it big like Mom.’”
Around six years ago, Molina began working with balloons. First for her own kids’ parties, then for close friends and family. As her skills and proficiency developed, she began experimenting with new techniques. In 2021, she began offering her services professionally.
While Sweet Celebrations has been in operation for the last two years, Molina still works full time as an internal auditor for Bank of America. Once her two kids go to bed, it isn’t uncommon for her to be awake until one or two in the morning processing orders or working on upcoming creations.
But the long nights are more than worth it, Molina says. The money from each order goes to the Molina family vacation fund, which has allowed them to make “some invaluable memories together.”
“It’s so crazy to think that balloons sent us to Turks and Caicos this summer for an entire week,” Molina says. “We’re shooting for Disney in 2024, so we’re already working towards that. And we’ve been able to go on a cruise together. So it’s really special for us.”
While Molina does not have a set number of events she works a week, she is mindful of how large each installation she agrees to is. In September, a corporate job was the only one she booked for a week after she realized she would need a medium-sized U-Haul to move the 1,200 balloons ordered.
Another weekend, Molina was already juggling a 55-helium balloon setup on the same day as her own son’s birthday party when she got a call asking for balloon decor at an event for children whose parents are incarcerated.
“I can’t say no to that,” Molina says. “It was a busy day, I had a lot going on. But the event was something I literally couldn’t turn down. I was like, ‘All right, I got you, we’ll make this happen.’”
Balloon decor, like everything else, is not immune to trends.
Beige and neutral colors were all the rage for summer baby showers, she says. Other themes or color schemes follow the waves of what is seen in pop culture.
Molina uses Pinterest, party invitations and color palettes to design each of her installations, but when a public figure such as a Kardashian posts a photo of an event with balloons, she knows she will likely start hearing requests for a similar setup.
“One of the Kardashian children had a big birthday party and it was ‘under the sea’ themed. They had this giant balloon octopus, and people were like, ‘Well how much is something like that?’ I was like, ‘Do you really want to know?’” Molina says. “There were probably close to $10,000 worth of balloons at that party.”
While Molina isn’t working on $10,000 projects from the workspace of her family home, she says she has had customers balk at the price of her work before.
The size of the balloons a customer orders can impact pricing too. A 10-inch balloon requires significantly less helium to fill than a 36-inch balloon, so the larger sizes carry an inflated price tag.
Many of the Sweet Celebration customers are either people who appreciate Molina’s craft, or people who have tried to make their own balloon art before and “swore to never do it again.”
“I think all of us have this feeling of nostalgia when it comes to balloons. Something about them just warms your heart a little bit,” Molina says. “To be able to do that for people is something that’s been a real blessing for me.”
