Happy New Year...and welcome to 2014!

I hope that you had a very productive 'ballooning' Christmas and New Years eve, and even managed to fit in and enjoy some family time over the holiday period! 

Looking at the Qualatex Facebook Groups it appears that many of you were busy creating some awesome Christmas and New Years decor, which is fantastic, congratulations to you all!

Before I start working on a heap of 2014 projects (which is always very exciting), I would like to take a quick look back Christmas 2013!

Starpoint & Taper Wall - by Sue Bowler CBA

I personally had a very busy time leading up to Christmas working with my husband John. As many of you will know, BAPIA -- the Balloon and Party Industry Alliance, took on the fantastic task of organising balloon decor for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital annual Christmas parties, held for all the sick children and their families. 
In 2 days the GOSH team and their many volunteers hosted 4 parties with over 2000 children and adults attending, along with a whole host of well known UK celebrities... so a great opportunity to show balloons at their very best!

The decor for the parties was partially designed by myself and the balloons very generously sponsored by Qualatex, Christopher Horne of Amscan also designed some of the great decor with Amscan co-sponsoring the decor for this amazing event!

Taper decor created by
Sue Bowler CBA

Creating decor for this party was more challenging than usual as we could not use any latex balloons at all, plus we needed to keep most of the decor off the floor as floor space with so many people attending each of the parties was at a premium...thank goodness for the Magmover system, Balloon Bond and Stretchy Balloon tape!

Finding a team of very willing helpers was easy, all BAPIA members were invited to participate in this special 1 day class to create the decor, and the places filled within minutes of it being launched, we had balloon artists from all over the UK and Ireland travelling to work on this event with offers from Europe too!

I had a number of ideas of what I wanted to create, but more than anything I wanted to build a tunnel for the children to walk through to take them into the party rooms! I know that as an adult how exciting it is to enter a room through a balloon tunnel, but for a child, it must be something else!

This is the Gosh Christmas party logo that we had to work with to help us to design the decor.

My original design was to create a tunnel that looked like the plan that I had designed below, this was using the 40" Qualatex Starpoint balloons, with 22" Festive Tree's and Snowmen Bubbles added into the Christmas Tree outline.

Once positioned we realised that we needed to create a slightly different room access to make it easier for wheelchairs, hence the addition of 38" Magenta Tapers at the front edge.

Starpoint Balloon Tunnel plan - by Sue Bowler CBA

Here is the final design.

Here is a few more pictures of decor that we created plus a great team photograph!

BAPIA members (all looking very festive) working together to create fantastic decor for the GOSH Christmas Parties.

Christmas presents using 40" & 20" Starpoint Microfoil Balloons

These Taper decorations are as tall as me!

Entrance bouquets created by Kevin Proctor CBA

What an amazing day! The atmosphere in the room where we created the decor was awesome, everyone in great spirit knowing that the children (and adults) would be in awe of all the magical balloons and decor that would greet them over the next few day!

A huge thank you to everyone who took part, with a special thank you to Roger Dawes, who invited BAPIA to work with him on this wonderful project and to our amazing sponsors! 

BAPIA also made a donation of £650 to Great Ormond Street Hospital from funds raised by those who attended the class with a donation made by BAPIA too!

Spring Fair 2013

So with Christmas and 2013 over, it's now time to work on my 2014 projects, starting with the Spring Fair window displays for the Qualatex stand, which I have been designing for quite a few years now! I love working on these displays as they truly challenge me and take my creativity to new and exciting levels each time!

Spring Fair is a trade fair (free to attend as long as you register in advance) that is held in the UK at the NEC Birmingham at the beginning of February, there is also the Toy Fair, Nuremberg, Germany that starts a few days earlier, both great places to see the exciting new ranges of Qualatex balloons, along with many other great stands!

So here is the first of many 2014 blogs and I hope that you continue to enjoy reading them and sharing my passion for balloons and the ballooning community!

Happy ballooning!

Sue

www.suebowler.com