Tips On Protecting Your Holiday Blow Mold Decorations From Sun Damage

Blow mold decorations while not excessively expensive in cost are not cheap.  They are a high quality, durable and beautiful hard plastic decoration that if taken care of will last you for many years to come, more so than other outdoor decoration types.  Blow molds are usually displayed outdoors in the elements where sunlight exposure is frequent and can become intense.  These sunlight rays will over time negatively affect the plastic construction of blow molds and other plastic objects causing them to become hard and brittle, making them break more easily.  This can be evidenced by leaving plastic items such as, milk jugs, 5 gallon buckets (plastic), plastic trash cans, etc. outdoors for a long period of time.  While blow mold figures are typically very well made and durable, sunlight is present all year round and so one should not assume that the blow molds are fully protected and safe from exposure when outdoors during any season of the year.

To avoid and minimize sunlight exposure and damage to your blow mold figures there are several measures you can take as follows.

First, you can minimize the outdoor placement time of the blow molds.  While it is nice to have the figures outdoors on display for a long period of time, it is better to shorten it some what.  During the day, the blow molds have the risk of sun exposure, especially as the sun moves in various positions through out the day, and so if you can shorten this outdoor time by even a little it will be beneficial.  By all means display your blow molds outdoors for night time illumination, that’s what they’re made for, just don’t keep them outdoors any longer than is necessary.  For example, if you are displaying a blow mold snowman for Christmas, you don’t need to set him out on the first of November, the week of or just after Thanksgiving would be just fine.  Also, once Christmas is past it’s best to go ahead and put Frosty away and not leave him out until February. 

The locations in your yard where you choose to place your blow molds can also affect just how much sun exposure and risk of damage they may encounter.  If possible, it’s a good to place blow mold figures in locations which receive minimal or no direct sunlight during the day.  This will protect the figures during the day.

If you have purchased and collected holiday blow mold figures for a few years you will likely have accumulated several different figures and perhaps even have some duplicates. If you do have these extras, you can utilize them and begin to display your blow mold figures on a rotation schedule.  Basically, instead of displaying all figures each year, if you have enough of them, you could display them once every 2 or 3 years.  This is a great way to limit the sun exposure each blow mold encounters and help give them additional years of display life.

Another important thing to think about in protecting your blow mold figures from sun damage is how and where you store them when they’re not on display.  It’s obvious you would not want to store the figures in a place not protected from sunlight exposure.  This could be indoors, inside your house, in a garage, basement, storage shed, or barn, etc.  Any type of protection from the sun and the elements would be okay, but you would also probably want to avoid any type of enclosure like a sunroom full of windows and skylights or a screened porch that allows sunlight to pass through.

Following these simple steps will help you protect your holiday blow mold figures from sun light damage and give them plenty of extra life to shine brightly for your during the holidays.

RESOURCE:

Sansing, Carrie, Blow Molds.  Planet Christmas website.

Retrieved from: http://www.planetchristmas.com/Blowmolds.htm

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