The Qualatex® World Tour Has Started - Enter the Mystery Box Competition to win a free registration to WBC 2018!

The Qualatex^® World Tour—#QualatexWorldTour17—has officially started! With sixty-six stops scheduled across the globe, this is going to be one amazing worldwide Qualatex event! 

Tina Giunta, CBA and Chris Adamo, CBA kick off the Q-Tour in Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Australia and New Zealand opened up this amazing tour with classes being held in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Adelaide, Australia plus Auckland, New Zealand.  In Europe, the tour kicked off in Belgium, closely followed by Greece! The U.S. tour starts in Miami on the 30th of March! To find out all the stops and class details click HERE for the U.S. and HERE for the rest of the world.

Free Online Balloon Industry Design and Calculator Tool from Chris Adamo, CBA.

I am so excited to be able to share with you a fabulous new FREE Online Balloon Industry Design and Calculator from the fabulous Chris Adamo, CBA, of Balloons Online, in Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Chris Adamo, CBA

Chris is one of those guys who loves to find an easier solution. Last year he designed a fabulous tool - the confetti applicator. As we all know getting confetti to distribute evenly and not clump up inside a balloon is not an easy task. However, Chris solved this problem by designing a tool that is easy to make and gives perfect results every time! If you missed this post, click HERE. Chris is always keen to share a great tip or technique, and once again he is sharing another fabulous tool!

The Balloon Design and Calculator Tool is a project that Chris has been working on for some time. And after many months of work, he is ready to share this tool with the balloon industry!

There are four tools to work with: the Quick Link Designer, a Balloon Column Calculator, a Balloon Arch Calculator and a Ceiling Fill Calculator.

A Look at Colour Trends for Spring 2017

Design by Shannon Kilford of Born to Party, Mosman, NSW, Australia.
www.borntoparty.com.au

The Pantone® Colour of the Year 2017 is "Greenery." It is described by Pantone as "A refreshing and revitalising shade, Greenery is symbolic of new beginnings. Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature's greens revive, restore and renew."

Spring is in the Air!

It's almost springtime for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, and I for one cannot wait! I think spring is one of my favourite seasons. I love the vibrancy of colours that show through even on grey days.

Along with spring, we have a number of great seasonal events, such as Mother's Day. The dates vary greatly around the world, but for many of us, we celebrate our Mother's Day in March. We also have Easter, which falls on April 16th this year.

This is the perfect time of year to create something exciting, bright, and fun to display in your store windows.












Here are a few ideas that will work really well for spring decor. I love the topiary-style to create decor. You can keep it simple by creating the 12-balloon cluster ball, or you can add like I have, some extra elements such as smaller balloon clusters, tissue tuffs, and even glitter balloons.

If you saw my post last month about how to make glitter balloons, you will love the vibrant lime green version that I have shown below. I have used these within the design to add a little sparkle!

If you would like to learn how to make these fabulous glitter balloons, click HERE

Fabulous New Balloons!

I hope by now most of you have received a copy of or have seen the new Qualatex^® Catalogue. If you haven't, you can easily view the online version by simply clicking on this LINK.

I know that you are all very busy, so I wanted to show you some of the new balloon collections that are featured in the new 2017 range, which I am sure that you will love as much as I do!

New Baby Balloons

I think that this fabulous new 24" "Baby Footprint" Deco Bubble is going to be a winner with customers! This wonderful footprint range is perfect for new babies and baby showers, too! 

NEW 24" Deco Bubble - "Baby Footprints" #49459

11" "Baby Footprints & Hearts" available in Rose and Robin's Egg Blue - check local catalogues for codes.

NEW 11" Baby Girl and Baby Boy Footprints & Hearts - only available in certain countries.

35" "Baby Feet Blue" #25851

35" "Baby Feet Pink" #25853

18" "Baby Boy LO(Feet)E" #25726

18" Baby Girl LO(Feet)E" #25746



Here is a display I made last month using the new Baby Footprint Deco Bubble and other coordinating balloons from the Footprint range.

U.S. Patent No. 6,782,675

Birthday

Wow, we have some truly fabulous new birthday Microfoil^® designs. Let's start with all things Smiley!

NEW 38" "Smiley Party Guy" #49360

NEW 18" "Birthday Smiley" #49057
Check out his fabulous reflective glasses.

NEW 9" Air-fill "Smile Face" #49411

NEW 9" Air-fill "Smiley Wink" #49428

NEW 9" Air-fill "Smiley Love" #49432

NEW 11" Smiley Star Bright Rainbow Assort. Please check local catalogues for code.





These lovely new 9" Air-fill Smiley Guys certainly know how to party!

Glitter Balloons!

Last month when I created a design for one of the Spring Fair window displays, I decided to make glitter balloons to complement the new, beautiful — in fact, probably one of my favourite ever Qualatex^® birthday Microfoil^® balloons — 18" "Birthday Pink & Gold Dots," Who cannot love this balloon!

#49164 18" "Birthday Pink & Gold Dots."

Design by Sue Bowler CBA

Here is the design that I created to show off this fabulous new balloon. I decided to have a go at creating a design using the organic style, which is so very popular at the moment. It was so much fun adding in the balloons, but it's important not to go too wild and still consider elements and principles of design, especially proportion, line, colour, and visual balance.

Luc Bertrand, CBA, shares his fabulous "Celebrating 100 Years" design - Step-by-Step.

Last week I published a blog showing the fabulous balloon decor created by Luc Bertrand, CBA, of wAw Balloons in Vichte, Belgium. Luc created a fabulous, unmissable focal point for the Pioneer Europe trade stand at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair that took place a few weeks ago in Germany.

Luc has very kindly offered to share with the readers of The Very Best Balloon Blog how he made his design — "Celebrating 100 Years."

If you own the fabulous AeröPole System^®, here is a great alternative way to use it! 

• Using five of the poles from the AeröPole System, connect these together to form a ring. 
• Start by covering the ring with a 5" Garland, with the 5" balloons inflated to 4.5".
• To fill the centre, use 6" Qualatex^® Quick Link Balloons™. Luc shows the plan clearly below.
• Once you have formed your Quick Link frame within the ring, you can add in your 5" duplets, inflated to 4.5".

Here are some additional photographs that should help you.




Step 1. 

Add the clusters to the frame. Luc also added two hooks that enabled him to secure the ring to the stand.