A few weeks ago, I was approached by a brand development agency who wanted me to build two balloon installations using silver square balloons to create an "immersive walkway." The client had been inspired by Andy Warhol's "Silver Balloons" exhibit that he first made in the 60's! The silver square balloons were hand-made - in fact, they were known as "floating Metallic Pillows."
After further discussions with the client and a computer-generated visual image, we agreed that I would create two Starpoint and Taper balloon walls. These balloon walls offered the fabulous shiny effect that they were looking for. Plus, we added a little visual movement within the walls by positioning the sections so that it created a slight wave rather than being totally straight.
Today, I am going to share with you some simple steps on how to make these fabulous balloon walls!
Firstly, I created a design on my computer for my client to see and approve. This also functioned as my working design sheet on the day. This is really easy to do. You simply go to www.Qualatex.com and download the balloon images that you want to use. I love the fact that they save as a .png file, which means that it does not have any background to the image! I then simply added and arranged the balloon images in a WORD document to create the design of the proposed wall.
Each wall consisted of forty 40" Silver Starpoint balloons and seventy-seven 27" Silver Taper Balloons.
We found it easier to make the wall in smaller sections rather than trying to build the wall in one go. We connected eight Starpoint balloons together using a cable tie gun before inflation, making sure to not to connect the valve points. We tied these after inflation.
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| Connecting the valve points after inflation. |
Once we had prepared all the sections, we connected them all together. You can use a cable tie gun or a scrap of 260Q. Both work very well!
To inflate the foil balloons we used the Premium FoilPro™. This machine is designed for easy, hands-free (using a foot pedal) inflation of foil balloons as well as latex and balloons that require higher-pressure. The great thing about this inflator is that it has a special nozzle that provides the correct inflation pressure for foils, with no risk of damaging self-sealing valves.
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| You can see from this photo how the balloons looked when connected together, several people commented on how they did not look like balloons once they were connected! |
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| The first section of wall made - sharing our work-space with some amazing vintage dummies. |
Each wall was made up of five sections as shown above. Once all the sections were prepared, we connected them together.
This was a really great project to work on. We learned a lot on the way. Needless to say, that the second wall was made in half the time of the first wall! The client was really happy and gave us great feedback!
A huge thank you to my team, Nicci Rene and John Bowler. And thank you Nicci, for the great photographs!
Happy Ballooning
Sue
www.suebowler.com
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| Here is a view of the wall from outside - we had to make sure that it looked good from both sides! |
This was a really great project to work on. We learned a lot on the way. Needless to say, that the second wall was made in half the time of the first wall! The client was really happy and gave us great feedback!
"We loved working with you on this project and want to thank you for doing such a fab job,. Everyone loved the installation!"
A huge thank you to my team, Nicci Rene and John Bowler. And thank you Nicci, for the great photographs!
Happy Ballooning
Sue
www.suebowler.com