Silly Season is upon us!

Like most people in my profession things start to get crazy in the run up to the summer holiday's hence why I've neglected you all so badly for the last 6 weeks. Shockingly bad form of me but I've been off decorating Proms, entertaining at parties and making custom balloon sculptures.

This week again is really busy but I will leave the gossip about that until next week ... mainly so I can be sure all the recipients of my creations have actually recieved them as I would hate to ruin the surprise!

Okay so where did I leave you last? Ah that's right the beginning of June! I won't bore you with details of all the bookings I've done since but I will share a few photos with you.

Also thanks to a colleague (and friend) Roger I worked at possibly the most impressive venue ever - The Tower of London. Roger and I had been hired to decorate the biggest Marquee you have ever seen situated in the Moat of the Tower on one of the hottest days of the year so far. It was very hard work but fantastic fun. Here are the photo's I took ... I hope you enjoy them.

 

          Well for the first time in a very long while I actually have a whole weekend off and I plan on enjoying it. However, another friend of mine has just sent me a balloon DVD as she's just discovered she has a latex allergy! Poor friend but lucky me. 

A Prom-tastic Couple of Weeks

When I left you last I promised that I would update you last week as to what the secret projects were but I am still waiting for photos!!

The weekend before last I had been booked for The Rugby 7's at Twickenham I made a fair few balloons and even got to walk around pitch side which was a treat. No photos unfortunately as I just didn't have time.  

That weekend I also made the airplane (which I told you about last time) and I did some décor for a surprise baby shower.  I didn't manage to get a photo of the floor standing piece I made but I am hoping to receive one soon as I have been assured Daddy-to-be took lots of photos.  They were very well received and I had a personal thank you from Mummy-to-be. 

I wasn't able to post last week either as I was too busy preparing for last weekends jobs.  On Friday I decorated my first prom of the year for the 6th Formers at John Henry Newman (I know they probably don't call it 6th Form anymore but I'm old enough to have used the old system!! - Only just though).  Again I recieved a thank you for the balloons which is always appreciated as it means I am doing my job well.

I was also booked for the 3rd year in a row for the Herts Show by Hertfordshire County Council to make my balloon creations. As usual the crowds were lovely and it was a brilliant weekend despite the weather!  There was an official photographer in the HCC Marquee taking loads of photos but as of today they are not on HCC's Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/Hertsdirect) but I will let you all know when they are.

I have a quiet working weekend coming up and a house in disarray due to decorating so I am not sure if I will have anything to share with you next week.  However, if you have any suggestions of something small I could try making I would love to hear them and I will post all those I try on here next week.

Planes, Trains & Funny Hats

Well once again it has been manic here at Loony HQ - not that I'm complaining!

I have been informed that this weekend I will be the lone balloon modeller at Twickenham for the Rugby 7's. Scary thought considering how big the stadium is. Although seeing as I am working with 6 of my face painter friends I am hoping that I may finally get some nice photos of me working ... it's very difficult to get a nice photo of me whilst I am working as it would seem I pull some very strange faces!  Anyway amongst working on other bits today (will tell you more in a second) I have made myself a nice delicate hat to wear. Do you think I will blend in with the crowds in this?

In addition to preparing for this weekend at the Rugby I've also had a couple of other projects that have kept me out of mischief. I can't let you know about one of them until after the weekend as it is still a surprise but I will do my best to share early next week.

The other project this week has been to make a Bi-Plane as a surprise 90th Birthday present for a gentleman who used to not only fly them in his younger days but also used to train other pilots too. Hopefully I will be getting a couple of photos of the Birthday boy with his balloon plane but in the meantime here it is before I delivered it today.

Well that's all for now as I've still got lots to do before tomorrow!

You're the Best Face Painter I have Ever Seen!

I worked a lovely party at the weekend where I was supposed to be doing face painting and balloon modelling. In these situations I usually start with the face painting and move onto the balloons about 3/4 of the way through.  However, at this party everyone was so impressed with my painting I was asked not to bother with the balloons because so many adults wanted to join in the fun!

I don't often take photos whilst working as I am too much of a perfectionist but I did take this one of a lovely little girl as I was particularly happy with the way it turned out.

 

 It has inspired me to pick up the brushes a bit more often and have a play. It also has me looking forward to a face painting only party I have coming up this weekend a lot more too.

Blog Envy

Well today I am ashamed to say I got blog envy! Sad but true.

A friend of mine spent hours working on her blog yesterday and to her credit it looks fabulous but it has made me realise I really need to up my game on here. So I am now off to (hopefully) create a lovely new blog to go with my lovely new website.

Oh that's right I've been so busy lately I've not updated my Balloony blog again! I'll do that now before I get side tracked.

Since I last left you I have buried myself away and got my basic new website up and running. If you are nosey you can take a peek here http://www.loonyballoony.co.uk. 

I started thinking about designing this website back at the end of 2009 not long after I started doing the décor. Back then I was running two separate websites - one for face painting (The Face Factory) and one for the balloon twisting (Loony Balloony) and really wanted to condense the business into one name, with one website. Since I was now doing more balloon orientated services I decided to stick with Loony Balloony and drop The Face Factory.

However, my old Loony Balloony was very much geared to balloon entertainment and I felt it did not show off my skills as either a balloon decorator or as a face painter. In addition I also felt the old look of the website would either put off brides and businesses looking for event décor or at best convince them they had arrived at the wrong website.

I began work on the site and as I did my ideas grew and grew until they were out of control and it became the elephant in the room.  However, after a meeting with Kerry Haynes, who is a consultant with Business Link, in April I decided to finally pull my finger out, strip the site back to the bare bones and get it launched!

There is still a lot of work to be done on the site so please do not think for one second it is the finished article. When I get time I will be tweaking and adding bits to make it better and better, however, in the meantime it is a significant improvement on the old site ... at least I hope you'll agree.

I've neglected you!

Sorry folks but just had 2 glorious weeks in the Cornish sunshine without a balloon in sight.

Before I went I did make a bespoke Bride & Groom for a wedding reception on 2nd April and this is what they looked like.

Hope you like them.

The Missing Post

As I explained in my last post the last 2 weeks have been a blur of bookings and preparations for yesterday's wedding fair. This post is basically a short and sweet one to show you all what I made for my 2 parties on 20th March. I always make a special balloon for the birthday child when I am booked to do balloons only so here are those models.

The first party was for a little boy who is Star Wars mad.  Strangely enough I ended up making tons of Light Sabres for lots of little boys. Thank goodness for the little girls at the party as they actually did want something a little more girly.

My 2nd party of the day was a Disney princess party for the younger sister of a family I have worked for in the past. It was lovely to see them a few years on.

Silly thing was with my Ariel balloon is that the head should have been made out of a heart shaped balloon for a nicer shape. I made mine out of a 5" round thinking I didn't have any and then discovered a couple of days later that I have about 80 of them!! Never mind I may have another try once I recover from yesterday.

First Ever Wedding Fair

Sorry about missing last week but I was so busy preparing for my 1st ever wedding fair I just didn't have time! I'll post what I should have last week after this one - a bit back to front but that is the way my head is today!!

I have been doing the balloon décor for a couple of years now but had been deliberately putting off venturing into the weddings market for 2 very good reasons. Firstly I wanted to build up my skills and confidence as your wedding day as a Bride is the biggest day of your life and the last thing I wanted was to go in a do a sub-standard job. I am sure naff balloons wouldn't ruin someone's reception but nonetheless I have no intentions of doing anything less than an excellent job for all my clients regardless of how big or small their booking is.  The other reason is because I knew that once I ventured into the wedding market I would have to attend wedding fairs and "sell" myself and for anyone who knows me that is way outside my comfort zone.

Anyway I decided to bite the bullet and booked in to exhibit at the wedding fair yesterday held at the Mecure Hatfield Oak Hotel. I booked a while ago so around all my other jobs I've been preping for yesterday. Not easy when you don't really have any printed promo materials in place and you don't have a clear plan of what you need, what you are doing and what you need to do.

As I have been very busy booking wise lately (not complaining by the way) it has been fun fitting everything in but I managed it. I didn't, however, get the new website, even in it's paired down state, up in time but there just was not enough time unless I wanted to forgo sleep to finish it. Hopefully, that will happen this week but I do have a lot of housework to catch up on that has been neglected over the last few weeks.

In a bid to be organised I arranged to drop off some bits the night before so I took along Bessie the life-sized bride and a couple of columns I had made that day.  The hotel were so impressed with Bessie that they offered her a room for the night! Here she is resting before her big day.

Bessie getting her beauty sleep!!

After helping my friend Roger of iGlobo based in Billericay (just in case anyone over that way needs a balloon artist at all) at his wedding fair 2 weeks ago, I roped him in to help me yesterday. We arrived around 8am at the hotel and set to work creating not only my stand but also some décor for the fair itself. Here's what we managed.

Our stand

Entrance way to our stand

  

Start of the Bridal Show

As you can see Bessie was rather popular and had her photograph taken a few times throughout the day.

Unfortunately, the turn out was not fantastic and my stand (although chosen by me out of 2 positions) was not in the best place. We were on the main route to the bedrooms and tucked round a corner a bit so I think we perhaps got missed by some of the brides who did make it. I am sure losing an hour's sleep had some effect on the turn out.

However, despite the lack of Brides I learned an awful lot and have not been deterred. I am already thinking about which fairs to attend after the summer.

Busy Busy Busy!

This week has been nice for special orders as I haven't started doing them properly yet but I had 2 requests none the less. I also did some balloons for a birthday and my 1st wedding fair.

On Wednesday I was asked if I would be able to make a life-sized replica of a colleague who was leaving as a "replacement" for him. It is a bit of a running joke in that department that when someone leaves they get replaced by an inanimate object.  The last guy to leave was replaced with a pot plant! Anyway after some very strenuous wrestling with the larger balloons I made this guy.

As you can see he was very well received and not allowed to fill his new post! He also later appeared on Facebook as a replacement profile picture.

The next one was a request for "a not too big Dolphin" for a friends birthday at the weekend. I adapted the shark I posted in the very first blog and made this guy. The client was delighted and I hope her friend was just as pleased.

Then my last job of the week was a present from me to my youngest brother for his 30th Birthday on Saturday. As he was in Paris for the weekend I didn't make him anything out of modelling balloons instead I opted for the big statement! Whilst he and his girlfriend were enjoying themselves I installed a 3ft tall "30" in his living room in plain view of all who walked past the window.  Here is a picture from the inside:-

Then to top off an already busy week I helped a friend out with a wedding fair. I have personally avoided doing wedding fairs so far because selling myself and my services is about as much out of my comfort zone as you can get but having booked to do my first wedding show on the 27th March I was quite relieved when my friend Roger of iGlobo asked me to come along and help him out on Sunday. It was a really busy day and very hard work (surprisingly so) but I think we were a hit as we were twisting as well as showing what we can do as balloon decorators. Below are pictures of our stand and a lady from the Premier Inn stand modelling a hat made by Roger and a guy from the mobile bar the other side of us in a Guiness hat both Roger and I made for him. I am now getting excited for my wedding fair in 2 weeks time so if you are near Hatfield do pop in and see us!

Well that is my adventures over the last few days and I'm off now to catch up on all the other bits I've neglected recently and to start getting prepared for the wedding show on the 27th!!!