Star Struck Air-Filled Balloon Decor for an Awards Ceremony

Many of us decorate award ceremonies or themed events (e.g., “Hollywood Nights”). I recently decorated an awards ceremony in London.  My brief was to create decor that offered big impact and strictly air-filled. It needed to be elegant and use the colours Gold & Black.

Stars, of course are the perfect choice for an event such as this! 
I also needed to use bases and poles to give me a height for my air-filled decor, but I did not want to build a traditional style column. 

I like to start my designing process on my computer first.This allows me to play around with ideas, and once I have a design (or designs) that I am happy with, I can use these images to send to my client for their approval. 

Designing on your computer is pretty easy, and in most cases, it does not require special software if it as simple as my designs.

I wrote a blog "As a Balloon Artist, how can we find our inspiration?". - in this post it gives a brief introduction on how you can create simple designs working on your computer.

New Year’s Eve Party – Go Formal with Foils!

I too was busy this NYE, and like Matthew Lewis mentions in his blog 'Tips for a smooth New Year's Eve', I was able to start my preparations earlier in the week. Pre-inflating over 1000 - 5" balloons along with other small jobs that all take valuable time. Six hours of preparing sand weights, attaching fixing points to stars as well as many other little tasks! We were also able to start working on our NYE decor at the venue on the 30th of December which was such a bonus. Another six precious hours that we did not need to work on the day! Our job was in London, England; it was a repeat of the job that we did last year. Exactly the same decor, but in different colours so that made it very easy for us and a great opportunity to make some changes and improvements, making the job even quicker than last year!

Sue's Top Tips

1. Understand your customer’s needs and requirements. Space is a premium and most venues like to maximise their seating capacity to maximise their revenue, therefore they have limited space available for balloon decor. Design your decor to fit the available space. We love to work with Qualatex^® Starpoint Microfoil^® Balloons as we can create these elegant walls that fit neatly against the walls in the ballroom.

2. Check for magnet fixing points. Knowing your venue is very important, and I would always recommend a site visit. Finding fixing points for magnets is also very helpful. We used Click-Click™ ClickMagnets to keep our walls perfectly in position. 

3. Allow time for repairs or changes. If you get the opportunity to start early, you still need to ensure that your decor looks perfect on the day. Occasionally a balloon will go down overnight, so ensure that you allow enough time to make any repairs or changes. In many cases, the event manager will want to walk around the venue with you once you have finished to confirm that they are happy with everything that you have done. It must look absolutely perfect!

"GOSH," - it's Christmas Party time! - 17th December 2015

Since 2013, the Balloon and Party Industry Alliance - BAPIA, has called upon its members to help create the decor for the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), Children's Christmas parties.

Built in 1852, Great Ormond Street Hospital had only ten beds when it first opened and was the first hospital in the UK that offered dedicated inpatient care to sick children. In 1858, GOSH survived its first major financial crisis when Charles Dickens spoke at a festive dinner and gave a public reading of A Christmas Carol in aid of the hospital. This raised enough money to purchase the neighbouring house on Great Ormond Street and increase the bed capacity to 75! Today, more than 255,000 patients visit GOSH annually. Not only is GOSH at the forefront of pediatric training in the UK, but it is also a pioneer of medical research to find new and better treatments for childhood illnesses.

Decorating the annual GOSH Children's Christmas party is such a great honour knowing that our industry, with some very dedicated helpers, has done a little to make this very special occasion a little bit more exciting and fun! 

The party is a Christmas treat for patients who are currently in the hospital or who have been treated over the last year. More than 2000 children, siblings, parents, and carers attended the four parties that are held over two days! 

These magical parties feature fun activities including face painting, arts and crafts, cupcake decorating, and an appearance from one very special guest - Father Christmas - who flies all the way from the North Pole for the occasion.

Decorating this party has its challenges as we are not permitted to use any latex balloons. So each year we get our thinking caps on and create exciting balloon decor without the help of our beloved latex balloons!

Balloon Images OCT/NOV/DEC 2015

After reading the fantastic article, ❝Create Fabulous Foil Arches❞ in Balloon Images Oct/Nov/Dec 2015, I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity for me and my team to recreate one of these amazing arches!

I loved the “Colourful Candy Surprise” arch by Cam Woody, CBA, that was featured in the same article.

Cam created an arch that incorporated all the Qualatex^® 18" and 9" Candy Swirl Microfoils attached in a random pattern that spread the colour throughout the design. I felt that these balloons would be perfect for the children; we would add a Christmas twist to the design, too! 

Using David Mahoney's recommended ❝H❞ taping technique, we started our preparation. Firstly, we air inflated our selected range of "Candy Swirls" and Christmas balloons. We wanted to emulate the wonderful randomness that Cam had created in her beautiful arch and felt it would be easier if we could select the balloons as we went along!