Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Tassel It!

It's amazing how trends arrive on the scene! For the past few years we have been seeing the growing trend of big balloons with festoons of tassels flowing from them. You only have to search Balloons with Tassels on Pinterest to see some truly amazing photographs! 

For me there is something quite retro or vintage about this look, and although many of the photographs are staged to capture that perfect shot, I certainly think that they are stunning!

Tassels can be made from a number of different materials; tissue paper, crepe paper, plastic table covers, foil, cellophane or a combination of any of these!

I love a challenge and decided that it would be great to learn how to make these very popular balloon appendages!

We usually see tassels on big balloons, so I decided that I would test out tassels on a range of other balloons!

With my daughter's birthday celebrations looming, there was the rare possibility of being able to celebrate outside in our garden (our English weather is not always very predictable). I decided to decorate our tree with tassel laden air-filled Bubble Balloons! The reason that I used Bubbles was because wanted to prevent the beautiful Big Polka Dot balloons inside from oxidising, plus I love Qualatex® Bubble Balloons!

I was absolutely delighted with the results! By simply attaching a few balloons to our tree (hanging on an invisible nylon thread), it really injected a blast of colour and a sense of fun and celebration to our garden! The tassels really made a huge impact and moved around with the breeze! The tassels on these balloons are made from crepe paper which I found really easy to work with.


Qualatex Bubbles with Tassels in Sue's Garden
U.S. Patent No. 6,782,675



Qualatex Bubbles with Tassels in Sue's Garden



Here is another tassel design that I made. This time, I used tissue paper for the tassels. I was unsure how many tassels I would be able to add to the Qualatex  Double Bubble Balloon®? Be careful as the tassels do affect the lift and floating time.





I was really happy with the end result! This complete design would make a wonderful gift with the addition of the gift bag with bear and tassel dressed balloon, once again taking a Qualatex Double Bubble to a whole new level!





















Using tassels to add a little bit of additional colour is perfect, especially for wedding decor! When Anna Bubnova (now Hickman), Pioneer Europe's Marketing Communications Manager, recently married she used tassels on the Elegant Rose & Butterfly Bubble balloons on the cake table decor to bring the softness of all the colours together.











Here is a short video clip on how to make paper tassels. This will give you a good starting point that will help you to make your own beautifully decorated balloons!




I think that this is a wonderful trend! I am looking forward to creating new and exciting designs using tassels. I want to experiment with a range of different textures to see how they look on different types of balloons and for different occasions... so watch this space!

Happy Ballooning!

Sue
www.suebowler.com

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful job, Sue!

Unknown said...

Great idea Sue.. Thank you for this idea and the video go on with your blog ..love it

klumsy said...

Beautiful thank you Sue 💗

klumsy said...

I have a question how did you attach the nylon thread to your outdoor decorations please

Unknown said...

Hi Sue,

Please can you share techniques for tying tassels to the neck of the ballon