This is our first mylar balloon. My husband got it March 16th as a birthday

Oh gosh with my two kids we have had so many within the years. They float up in the air for ages. When they deflated with time I use to be really creative with mine. I use to cut them carefully and use them as book covers. There is this one, that for mothers day one year, my son had received some money for cleaning the neighbors yard. He ran to our corner Jewel Food Store and surprised me with this Giant mylar balloon. Oh My G, when he walked in the door with the gigantic Happy Mothers Day Balloon I felt so special that day and you should have seen his cute face. He was just as excited as me, because it was like he had gifted me this really special gift. That myLar balloon floated for over a year. Eventually it lost is air and I took it and folded it and saved it. Do you know it has been 6 years and I still have it and look at it occasionally and smile like it was the day he gave it to me. I will cherish this one always!

They do eventually deflate, they just do not seem as porous as latex balloons. I have seen them cut up for collages and just tacked to the wall for wall art. You never can tell what a cat is thinking, though.

Oh yeah, I have had lots of them as well as my kids..I love them because they do last a lot longer than the other kind, but eventually will loss the helium and come back down..I use to keep them and then throw them out, but your idea of using it to wrap things is an excellent idea or even for wrapping paper..:)

I have had the big balloons shaped like things for holidays. Is that what you mean? They last a long time. When my mother passed we had a big one shaped like a butterfly in among the flowers and I brought it home as a rememberance. They are fun and they last a lot longer than the regular ones.

They are probably trying to hatch a plan to get it down..lol..I have got balloons filled with helium for my girls before and they usually just stay inflated for about a week. That's a good idea about wrapping something up with it. I have usually just thrown mine out. I have known people to hang them on their walls...like a kid's bedroom decoration.

If all the helium leaves the balloon, that's the point at which it will float down. However, if a decent sized amount of helium stays in the balloon, it could technically stay in the air forever. True story: my family moved into a large house back in October of 1998, when I was just ten. That December (of 1998), my brother had a huge birthday/New Year's Eve party, and my mom got him a bunch of regular balloons and a helium balloon. At some point it got loose and floated up to our living room ceiling (we had a very large living room, with a steeple-like ceiling). We couldn't get it down for the life of us, even after using broomsticks, throwing things at it, etc. Finally, at some point when I was eighteen, it had drooped low enough to where my husband and then-fiancee hopped up and grabbed it for my parents. It had floated out-of-reach in our living room for over eight years. We actually never used them after they deflated, we simply threw them out. Now that I hear other people are doing things with them, that sounds kind of wasteful. Whatever you do with your helium balloons, though, enjoy them while they last. Helium is a finite natural resource, meaning there's only a certain amount on the earth to take. Since some of the government's space programs use this for research and chemical processes, they are thinking about either cutting it off to the public and/or charging an ungodly amount for it to deter the usage of helium for unimportant purposes. It's very interesting, and I'm not sure when this will be going into affect. If anyone wants to read about that, I believe the article I read was on Live Science's website. As for your cats, they're probably just intimidated by it. It probably looks "taller" than them and therefore makes them cower to it. Some of the cats I had when I was eighteen were also there at ten, so after eight years of that darned balloon being in the high ceiling, the cats could, quite frankly, care less.

Mom got one Valentines Day one year and that darn thing floated around her room until nearly May! I finally took it home when it stopped floating. Some of them are out and out amazing!