Customising Balloons with Vinyl - including Step-By-Step Video Tutorials

This beautiful personalised Deco Bubble is 
by Jacqui Pettitt, of Tiffiny's Balloons 
in Chelsmford, U.K.

The ability to professionally personalise balloons has revolutionised the balloon industry. The simplest approach to personalising balloons is to use glue pens and glitter, or a marker pen. But unless you have perfect handwriting and the ability to write on a curved surface, neither of these beat using a die-cutter machine like a Silhouette Cameo or Cricut - there are many other brands available, but these are the two brands that appear to be the most popular in the balloon industry.

Personalised gifts are currently the "in thing" as far as the giving and receiving of gifts is concerned. The ability to be able to offer your customers the option to write a special message or add a name or special age to the balloon is an absolute winner!







If you are thinking about buying a die-cutter such as the two listed, there are some fabulous tutorials to help you on your way!

If, like me, you're not great at reading instructions and want to get started immediately, I recommend that you watch this helpful tutorial by Dominic Cassidy, CBA of Q Corner first. He talks you through the setup of your work area in the software for the Silhouette Cameo & Portrait, Silhouette Studio - and it is probably one of the best 16 minutes you will spend before actually trying to use your machine! 

The next tutorial below covers how to use the TEXT TOOL - I truly wish that I had watched this video sooner! In this video Dominic shows how to use the text tool, and also shows some great tricks to make the text follow a curved line or any other shape!

Now what if you want to personalise a balloon with an image, like the unicorn face? The next tutorial - TRACE TOOL will show you how to trace an image that you want to use.

The unicorn face was made from a number of different resources. First, I used a 24" Deco Bubble with a 16" White latex balloon inside to make a solid white balloon rather than a clear Deco Bubble. I found the unicorn eye lashes and ears by Googling UNICORN FACE clipart - be careful as some clipart images are free, whilst others are licensed and require payment. I was initially unsure how to make the horn but I found a great horn shape that worked perfectly. The flower shape was already available in the cameo library and the cheeks are simply circles.

Here is another beautiful example of a personalised balloon by Jacqui Pettitt. I love Jacqui's attention to detail as well as the way that she composes her balloon designs for her social media marketing.

Personalised Crescent Moon Design by Jacqui Pettitt.

If personalising balloons is something that you have been thinking about doing for a while, or maybe you have already bought your machine but have not found the time, then this is the time to get started! 

If you are in need a little inspiration, check out #personalisedballoons on Instagram - with over 160K  posts, it's packed with some truly outstanding design ideas.

A huge thank you to Dominic Cassidy and Q Corner for allowing me to share these great video tutorials, and to Jacqui Pettitt for sharing some of her beautiful designs!

Happy Ballooning!


Sue
www.suebowler.com
#suebowler

Personalising Balloons Using a Die-Cutting Machine: Part 3

I often here people saying how difficult it is to compete against the "big boys." My answer to that is - don't be like the "big boys!" Be yourself and offer something exciting and unique! 

Yes, I cannot deny that there are people out there who will always go for the cheapest option, but that is not true of everyone. There are people who want something a little different, special and unique and are prepared to pay a premium for that service!

For this 3rd and final part of this series, I would like to look at a few other ways that we can use our die-cutting machines for our designs and also within our businesses.

When we talk about personalising balloons, it does not always have to be sticking letters or shapes on to a balloon. There are other things that we can do with our machines. 

Cutting Card Stock

If you like to be a little bit creative and are not adverse to making things yourself, then you will probably enjoy creating your own personalised ribbons too! This was one of the reason why I invested in my machine a few years ago!

I had a job where I needed to recreate a balloon (10 actually) that could be used as part of a promotion to celebrate Candy Crush Saga's 1st Anniversary. This is probably one of those occasions when you could easily say "I'm afraid that we don't sell Candy Crush Saga balloons," and lose a sale! 

I decided that I would offer the client the best alternative that I could, and that was to create my own Candy Crush Saga balloons along with hand-made Candy Crush Saga ribbons!

(This job was on behalf of Candy Crush Saga and therefore did not infringe any copyright laws).

Personalising Balloons Using a Die-Cutting Machine: Part 2

Following on from part 1 of this series of blogs, I asked a few of our lovely industry professionals if they would kindly share a little of their experience working with their die-cutting machines.

"Personalising balloons has become an integral part of WOW Balloons. We would not be without our 'little Silhouette'.

They have become so popular, if you show anyone a personalised 3 foot column,  9 times out of 10 they will buy it! We often find that they will buy 2 so that they can be positioned at the entrance of the venue. It's certainly added another W to our 'WOW', so from my point of view, it was money well spent."

- Debbie O'Neill, Wow Balloons, Essex, UK

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Dominic Cassidy of All Things Fun, County Durham offers these thoughts:

Pros 

The ability to say "yes" to our customers! Having the right balloon at the right time is pretty hard at times, however being able to customise with vinyl means we can do pretty much anything. Fast, create a simple design and cut within minutes. The up-sell, adding names and ages to balloons gives us a great opportunity to add extra value for the customer with extra profit for us. Unique Selling Point (USP) Gives your business that added extra that the large multiples do not do. Gives us another avenue to be creative. Consistency, Being able to make both eyes the same is one of life's simple pleasures! Additionally if your customer would like half a dozen of the same design… no problem!

Personalising Balloons Using a Die-Cutting Machine: Part 1

We have been personalising balloons for years now. I remember attending one of my first ever balloon shows over 20 years ago and seeing beautiful personalisation using glue pens and fine glitter, and to be honest, I still love it today... as long as the person writing the message or name has beautiful hand writing!

Jacqui Pettitt, of Tiffany's Balloons uses stencils to create an outline before she glitters her balloons, which gives a very professional finish!

A few years ago, I was introduced to the Silhouette Cameo and it certainly changed my world!

The Silhouette CAMEO is an electronic die-cutting machine designed for personal use. Like a home printer, it plugs into your PC or Mac with a simple USB cable. However, instead of printing it uses a small blade to cut paper, cardstock, vinyl, fabric and more up to 12" wide and 10' long.

Taking personalised balloons to a whole new level.

Owning a machine that can cut vinyl and other materials has transformed the way that I think and work, because now everything is possible!

About a year ago I was contacted by a customer who had been referred to me by another balloon company. Their request was for something that was not available or achievable within the given time frame, and even then I am not sure that it would have been possible, so I had to choose, do I tell the customer that their request is not possible or do I tell the customer that although we cannot provide exactly what they were requesting we can certainly make something that I believe would work well!

The client had a deadline, it was less than a week away and therefore they were happy to listen to my ideas and suggestions.

I started out by creating an 'artists impression' of my idea. I like to do this as it means that I can quickly make a graphic of a design on my computer to show the customer what my idea's are without spending time making up a design that they could easily reject.

I don't use any fancy program to do this I simply use a basic draw facility in word or pages depending on whether you use a PC or a MAC, although I have recently purchased Deco Builder which is a very comprehensive design package specifically for the balloon industry, that allows me to create even more sophisticated designs to share with my clients, but I still use my basic version too especially when I am playing around with ideas and colours!