The great thing about this design is that it is all air-filled and will last for many weeks, therefore it would be ideal to decorate shopping malls, car showrooms and of course parties too!
It's a very simple design and you can make a variety of different versions simply by changing the Qualatex Taper balloon sizes. To give this design some scale, each Taper Star is the same height as me, so about 1.6m or just about 5' 6"!
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| Taper Star designed by Sue Bowler |
2 x 38" Taper Swirls
4 x 27" Tapers
2 x 13" Tapers
14 x 5" Latex - 2 should be a different colour.
1 x 160Q
Method of Construction:
1. Air inflate all of the Qualatex Taper balloons, the 38" and the 27" Tapers have valves but the 13" Taper will need to be sealed using a heat sealer.
2. Tie the Tapers into duplets using like sized balloons.
3. Now lay the balloons on to a flat surface and in the pattern that you want to create, but don't twist all the clusters together, just simply lay them on top of each other.
5. Inflate 6 x 5" Duplets to approx. 4" and twist these into 2 clusters of 6 balloons.
6. Inflate the last 2 5" balloons, these should be a different colour to the 6-balloon clusters to make the centre of the design. Inflate these to approx. 3" and tie off individually (not as a duplet).
7. Take the first of the 6-balloon clusters and position this at the centre of the Taper design, use the 160Q that you used to secure the Tapers together to attach this cluster, you will need to hold the cluster down firmly as you do this.
Flip the whole design over and repeat on the other side with the second 6-balloon cluster.
Finally add the 2 x 3" balloons to the centre of each of the 6-balloon clusters.
8. To hang these designs, add a length of monofilament line to the top of one of the centre Taper balloons and secure to the ceiling using a Mag Mover Magnet.
This design looks great when displayed in groups all at slightly different heights, it will help to fill large spaces.
I designed this second version for an event where we could not use any latex balloons!
I made this Taper Star using only the 38" and 27" Qualatex Tapers, as I needed them to sit tightly together. Because we could not use a latex cluster to hold the design firmly, I used a little bit of Stretchy Balloon Tape between each of the Tapers to stop them from moving around.
The centre of the design was created using 2 x 9" Round Microfoil balloons, and on the back of each of the balloons I secured a short length of Dacron line once again using the Stretchy Balloon tape so that I could tie the 2 x 9" balloons together to form the centre of the design.
These designs are super quick to make,including inflation time they take no more than 15 minutes to make... so a very profitable design too!
Happy Ballooning!
Sue
www.suebowler.com
3 comments:
Can the tapers (which haven't been heat-sealed) be re-used later?
Hi Kathy, yes! Any foil balloon that has a valve can be re-used. If working with air these will last a very long time anyway, but yes, you can certainly re-use a foil balloon.
How do you secure the monofilament line?
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