Balloon sculpture question...

[applegirl]

Hi !

I'm curious what the most "popular" balloon sculptures are, and where do you get your balloons?

I've found a gross (144) for about $8 thru the Oriental Trading Company, and I suspect that's pretty good.

I personally like the flower and stem a lot, and hats ROCK, and doggies / mice are pretty cool... my little kids really like swords, because they're so much fun to play with.

Some animals- the hummingbird, caterpillar, parrot on a circle swing- are kind of cool to try, but unless you get out a marker, and sometimes even then, it takes a lot more imagination to "get" them, and I wonder how important it is to practice the ones that people aren't as interested in...

Thanks,
applegirl

[Scruffy]

Or, For four bucks more, you can get a 250 count bag of Good quality balloons......
La Rock's Balloons

Just a good rule of thumb: stick with either Qualatex or Bettallatex balloons. The ones you want are called 260's. The color assortment doesn't matter. I'm real crazy about the colors in the Entertainer assortment, The traditional assortment are also excellent. But to learn this is a good way to go.
I have a bag of the balloons you are looking at and they are very difficult to blow up and twist.
Also, while your at the Larocks site, pick up a balloon pump. The hand held purple one made by Qualatex will serve you well for a long time.

[Tiffany]

Try creativeartstore.com, Balloons, face painting, clowns, gospel magic, gospel illusions, drama resources, puppets, inspirational gifts, costumes, wigs, juggling - They are always really good on prices ($5 for the same $8 you are paying on oriental trading)


Some people use southern balloon supply and others use tmyers

Depending on your locale and shipping- you need to take that into factor. Oriental trading is always high on shipping and I think their prices are high too.

[firemoe]

I am far from experienced, but just from what I have seen, I spent a lot of time learning multiple sculptures and the minute a little boy sees a sword, that is all they want. Girls seem to love the flowers and the dogs.
I would learn the ones that you enjoy the most and try to stick to one or two balloon sculptures if you are going to be making them for many kids.

[Fitzwilly]

Mind if I weigh in a little on this one? Please save yourself the aggravation of buying your balloons from Oriental Trading, the local party store or Wal-Mart. Scruffy is right when he said that there are two main brands that are used in the twisting community: Qualatex and Betallatex. There is a reason for this --- Quality and consistency. In order to become proficient with your twisting you need to have balloons that you can count on. It does you no good to get 85% done with a sculpture and have a bubble start to leak.

There are a number of places to find instructions for balloon creations. I have been collection a few and placing them in the Balloon section of the forum. There are a number of video clips (the quality of the sculptures is pretty good the filming leaves something to be desired) at The Balloon Animals Blog There are instructions and thousands of pictures of creations at the motherlode of all balloon sites Balloon HQ - Educating the World About Balloons and Balloon Art

You as the entertainer can control at least to a degree what the audience wants, but it takes experience.

[EEK]

Learn a few and build 'em quick.

Dogs and Swords are perfect if faced with hoards of balloon hungry kids and 260's are great for these.

160's are great for flowers (two balloons) and rocking horses and once learnt, neither of these takes too long to 'knock out' quickly.

For special moments though - the 'balloonicature' - building a head and modelling it on the birthday child or a special child you're working with can be really rewarding. I know some skilled modellers who can do these in about 5 minutes whereas it takes me 15.

I did a few today working in my local hospital and the kids were absolutely thrilled with them. Mind you, the kids that got dogs and swords were thrilled with their balloons too.

[Pickles]

Balloons to You is another good place to buy Qualatex balloons. In fact, I've always found that they have the best prices. Their web site is btydirect.com, although you have to call them to place your order. (For some reason they don't have their prices listed online right now. It says they are restructuring their site.)

Regarding the most popular balloon animal choice.... I find that the first kid in line determines what everybody else wants. For instance, if kid number one wants a monkey, that's what everybody else requests. If the child at the front of the line wants a parrot, I'm going to be making lots of parrots.

[Waldo]

Fitzwilly is right, no sense buying poor quality balloons. I started out down that road and it is not pretty. The balloons break more and slow you down. Also the colors aren't as good as the qualatex balloons. Practice is key to getting better. I have animals around my house all the time. The little boy that lives behind me asks for balloons everytime he see's me. I just go inside and pluck one from the mantel.

Waldo

[applegirl]

Great advice- and great weblinks! I'm going shopping for balloons with my debit card here in a few minutes- very cool- the qualatex/ bellatex are priced cheaper than the O.Trading ones, plus, yes I've verified it a LOT now, lots of practicing- they break/ pop easily and are hard to blow up. Then again, I think I'll need to try a recommended pump as well...

THANK you also for specifiying that I should buy 260's - If I'd accidentally found the qualatex or bellalatex sites on my own, I'd never know what I was looking at - AT ALL- now I can see the value of reading up in the blogs from Fitzwilly and the archives from this site to see what I'm doing before I buy too many or start to think I'm really a pro- there is a LOT to know! Fortunately it's fun, so I enjoy checking it all out...

[in Harmony with Jesus]

I wanted to throw in my $.02 on the balloons as well. I have not been happy with the Betallatex. They seem to pop a lot easier than the Qualatex. Just what Twinkles & I have seen in experimenting with different balloons. And a side note on off brands: Hobby Lobby has some that are reasonable & ok for practicing (don't pop as easy as others but still not as good as Q's) but I wouldn't use them anywhere except to practice. They don't seem to last as long either.

Once you get used to the 260's get some rounds or hearts, ooo or bee bodies & play with those. I've gotten to like the bee bodies. I used a couple of them to make butterflies last weekend at teh carnival & I'm working on getting better at the ice cream cone found here: BalloonHQ Columns - Ralph Dewey It turns out really cute but isn't the easiest thing in the world.