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Hello everyone,
Last month I had the wonderful opportunity of teaching educational classes at the Halloween, Costume & Party Show in Chicago. While the weather outside was very cold, windy, snowy and icy, the Rosemont Convention Center was warm and exciting with new products and ideas.
One of the classes was "A Twist in Time for Gift Baskets with Themes"which I taught with Maxine Baird. We showed how miniature designs can add great value to gift baskets, centerpieces and deliveries. One member of the audience felt that the miniatures added 20-25% more value to the designs.
Control Plastics, makers of great balloons weights and sticks, allowed me booth space where I twisted miniatures for everyone and shared miniature twisting tips and sold my books. I met many BHQers at the booth and many other balloon twisters from across the US and Canada. I also had the opportunity to teach people to twist who then helped me make miniature for show attendees. Two local residents invited me to stay in their homes and I had great fun teaching their eight-year olds how to twist with 160s.
When I arrived at the show, Woody from Pioneer gave me some samples of the new Qualatex 160s. I was very excited to see and twist with cocoa BROWN, blush, clear, lime green, and standard red, blue, green, orange and yellow. The new 160s should be at your distributor by the time you read this column. The balloons will be available in solid color bags. As I write this, I've only been able to twist with a few of each color and the quality of the balloons is what we have come to expect from Qualatex - excellent.
I've been asking for brown balloons since the 160s were introduced so it was a bit exciting to twist my first brown miniature. As soon as I get more brown balloons, I'm sure I'll be making every brown creation that my imagination can create.
One of my creations is a Love Bug - the second cousin to the bumblebee who stings you with love, not pain. I've been using white for the wings but the clear 160s make the design look even better. I am very excited about having a wider color selection of high quality balloons.
I've included some photos of designs using the new Qualatex colors. The parrot is an adaptation of Ralph Dewey's design using the new 160s and the eye print rounds. The Scooby Doo parody is adapted from Don Caldwell's design. The collar is a double stuffed lime green inside a sapphire blue. The Tigger parody is one of my designs and his nose is a double stuffed white inside a ruby red.
I love the look of the Spiderman parody made with the standard colors. For his web, I found a new product called "Paper Wire" at Michael's Arts and Crafts. It is tightly coiled paper that looks and bends like wire. I put a section of the paper wire inside an uninflated white 160. I had been using wrapped floral wire but the paper wire is a safer product so I will use it from now on.
At the show, I taught Dawn Perry of Beach Grove, Indiana about using the floral wire to make Spiderman's web. Dawn got very excited about the wire and made a fishing rod and reel with a handle that rotates. She will share her design in my next column.
I'll be sharing more 160 designs featuring the new colors in future columns. Call, write or e-mail Qualatex to thank them for the new colors. Buy and use all the 160 colors and maybe we will get more colors in the future.
See you next month,
Linda Berman
You can find single and multiple-balloon 160 designs in my books, "Marvelous Miniatures," "More Marvelous
Miniatures," " Even More Marvelous Miniatures," "Marvelous Miniatures for Beginners," "Wearable Marvelous
Miniatures & Other Detailed Designs," and "Crowd Pleasing Marvelous Miniatures." Details about the books are at
http://www.wizvax.net/smiles/BALLOON.HTM
You can contact me at heartthrob@pacbell.net or balloonlady@pacbell.net or at (626)581-7690. I live in Southern
California in the Pacific Time Zone. You can write to me at PO Box 1404, Walnut, CA 91788 USA
