Last week I attended the Spring Fair at the NEC Birmingham. Spring Fair is an annual B2B trade show where businesses go, and that includes many of the major high street and online retailers as well as small independent stores, to buy new and inspiring products to sell in their stores. The fair is not only balloon and party related, it covers an abundance of products from fashion to jewellery, cookware and thousands of other products! The next show will be from the 4th -7th February 2024, so don't forget to mark it in your diary if you are UK based!
So what does this have to do with Cupcakes? Each year, for more years than I can actually remember, I have been given the amazing opportunity to create balloon designs for Qualatex Europe's windows at this trade event! Each year I am tasked with creating and designing displays that feature new balloons and products from scratch.
Balloon Cupcake by Sue Bowler, inspired by Dante Longhi
For my first window, I was asked to feature the new Birthday Ombrè Cupcake, a fabulous new 31" Microfoil balloon.
My Inspiration
Before I even touch a balloon, I start by creating a mood board; this helps me to get an idea of the balloons that I should feature within my displays. I use Canva to create my mood boards. I simply import the balloons and any images that I want to use to help me with my display. This is also a great way to show your clients your ideas when you are still in the development stages of your designs.
Cupcake Window Display Mood-Board
I knew that Dante Longhi of Dream Factory Balloons in New Jersey, USA had designed and made balloon cupcakes, so this was my first stop, to find out the technique! Fortunately for me, Dante had filmed himself making the cupcake for the QCorner convention last year.
To learn how to make Dante's 3-D Cupcake Sculpture watch the video below!
Watching this video was invaluable as it helped me understand the technique that I needed to use. My next challenge was then to work out the balloon sizing, as my cupcake was much smaller than Dante's! I surprisingly worked out the sizing quite quickly and after only a few attempts my cupcake began to take shape! I cannot tell you how much fun I had creating this design and seeing it grow into the final result!
Here are photos from each step of building the cupcake:
Base Layer
View looking into the Cupcake
Second Layer Added
Two Layers of Frosting added
And the final balloon added to fill in the top
Here is the final result and my window display!
I did actually make some changes to Dante's original design. I only use four rings, whereas Dante uses five. This helped me to reduce the size and height of the design to ensure that it was in proportion to the window space that I had available.
Balloon Cupcake by Sue Bowler - inspired by Dante Longhi
Window Display created by Sue Bowler for Qualatex Europe at Spring Fair 2023
If you are interested to learn how to make the smaller cupcake design, email me sue@bapiaonline.com and I will happily share the sizing, just follow the same construction techniques as shown in Dante's video above!
A huge thank you to Dante for his incredible talent and for sharing this design!
I will be sharing my other window displays over the next few weeks!
