Thelma's dress has been put in with the other mass email that goes around about balloon dresses and has ben picked up nearly everywhere now; http://shine.yahoo.com/event/summertime ... toViewer=2

Quote from: "Fuzzy"This is a business event Graham, not a friendly get together.

I will have to 100% disagree with you on this, I do this because I love out art and I have found something in life that I completely feel comfortable with.
I did run the days for a while with no sponsorship and paid for the events myself and paying to get the first star names over as well, and yes I did loose a few pennies but it was what I wanted to do, to give something back that has given myself so much pleasure over the years. David's death was also a factor in the way my life has progressed but I took the bull by the horns so to speak and got up off my backside and made things happen.

I appreciate some people may not get me and what I'm about, I am a little sarcatsic with my sense of humour and if I have upset anyone over the years and I probably have, how about using this as an olive branch and giving me another go as you may be surprised that I'm not as bad as some people may make me out to be, I think my heart is in the right place.

As said before I'm still as passionate now as I was all those years ago, there are so many lovely people in our industry who I'm more than happy to help out if required.

I could spend my time more productively earning money elsewhere than at a care & share day but I choose to have the fun of a day above all else, my choice and I would not have it any other way. I still get the excitement of learning a new model/technique after all these years. The days are a fun get together for anyone to attend not just members of the balloon artistes guild, the club was only set up to give us the working capital to pay for the lecturers to come over so that they could share their knowledge with like minded enthusiastic balloon artistes.

So another variation on Dennis's & Royal's rabbits was produced and I varied the look with the 260 coming over between the eyes, made it easier to make without this and gave slightly smaller ears which I thought were more in keeping with the model and also just 4 balloons.
I put a 260 heart around the poodles as I think I would use this like this and not with a 6" heart. More of a cute factor I think.

Number 24

Balloon-gineering Volume 3 from balloon animals to balloon sculptures. Royal & Patty Sorell

There is a good selection on the tape that was produced in 1997 so some 14 years ago.

On the tape was, Poodles, Swan, Sword, Lion, Monkey + Tree, Hugging Bears, Base, Bow and Arrow, Fish and Rod, Flower, Ladybug, Bee, Large Flower.

Machine Gun, 2 Road Runners, Bunny, Tweety, Pink Panther, Bike and Stork. Also seen on the tape and not shown were Starship Enterprise and a Superman.

The base for the hugging bears was a simple and very effective way to make any sculpture stand up for a display, I liked the Swans in a heart and Poodles kissing and the Rabbit reminded me of Dennis's so I was able to make far bigger ears and still only use 4 balloons for Dennis's rabbit which was an added bonus. The rabbit shown by Royal only uses 3 balloons. I think the idea of the tape was to ad value to the models/sculptures you already knew by adding perceived value with additional balloons. I enjoyed this tape as I was up and making some of the models while it was still running which is a good sign for me of getting some additional ideas to try out.

The second section of the tape from the machine gun onwards I felt could have been slowed down a little as it was difficult to keep up and the twists could have been shown more clearly to camera if this section was not so rushed, still there is always the rewind button.

I did add a pinch twist in between the kissing poodles which was not on the tape so that the poodles sat nicer and also two pinch twists at the base of the heart with the swans which again was not on the tape, it made the heart sit nicer.

I changed the feet on the rabbit I made from the memorial lecture that Dennis showed, possibly a little quicker or I could not get on with the single foot and loop.
It still used only four balloons, I will have a go at super sizing Nippy as to give a 3/4 yr old a balloon bigger than they are is a funny situation.

No we did have this discussion on  another thread, to get any of the DVD's you have to be a member of the club as the lecturer is informed the DVD will only go out to members and at just £33 a DVD with 4 hours of instructions we think is excellent value for money already.

Last one then I'm off to view another tape/DVD but not decided yet which one to look at.

A few variations on the bazooka, not sure if the legs on the gun look right? I made the blush one as that is all I had open in the 12" round balloons.
The second picture is with a 350 and 260 with 160 legs, if you took the legs of it's just a 3 balloon bazooka for the real world.

I then had a go at making a bazooka with sight, fire trigger, kick stand etc, probably a little to complicated for the real world but I think I will work on a happy medium between the two later as I think the boys may well like this. I need to road test this with Harry and Zakh to see how the react to it.
I think the gun may look better with a 12" round balloon tulip twisted and tied onto the 646 to give a more bulbous look and feel.

Number 23

Paul Belanger, Dare to be different.

This tape which again has no date when produced covers Slim Jims and Worker balloons, the slim jims come in size 760 and 760S the "S" is for prestretched when they have latex paint added to them to add extra colour unlike the 760 which is just a solid colour.
Paul also talks about the worker balloon which is a 49S. On the slim jim the 760 i@m guessing is 7" diameter and 60" length. As I did not have any of these I used a 646 to make up the bazooka.

On the tape were described linking balloons, games, wreath, palm trees, Bazooka, caterpillar, snake, dragonfly, insects, hats, fish, piranha, snake charmer, jungle tree hat, alien hat, crazy antenna basket case and a super snooz.

I have to say I was very dis-appointed with the tape, it was shot at super miles away and what did not help is that Paul is not the tallest of person so this made it even worse. Paul's head was about in the centre of the TV screen on the horizontal and should have been right at the top. I could not see any of the small add on details made from 260 and 280 balloons. When he talked about pop twists if no one knew what they were the video would not have been any help.
I actually got annoyed watching this tape so will leave it at what I have said already but it did seem to be a case of just using the larger balloon in place of a 260/280 and Paul showed the indian feather hat made from the super slim jim. Also explained was a palm tree with the slim jim as a trunk and then 260's for the leaves and just a one balloon monkey made form a 260 wrapped around the slim jim so proportion and scale was all wrong. I could go on and on but enough said.

The bazooka as made from the instructions on the tape, Paul's bazooka was a lot longer as he used the 60" slim jim and I had a 646.
The first picture is the bazooka and then Paul put a slight bend in the middle and said everyone would know what it was meant to be,
I personally think not so we will see if anyone can guess what the second picture is meant to be, competition time.

The bazooka had a tulip twist at the end and it was explained this was to make it more authentic but then Paul added the handles on and the tulip twist was always kept at the wrong end for the rest of the explanations. You are meant to put your arm through the loop and hold onto the single handle at the front. So if you are making this I would have the handles the other way around so that the tilip twist is at the front, I did tie the tulip twist into place as there is a lot of pressure on the 646 and I think it would pop out to easy if not tied in place.

Yes it would be £99 to join the club but you would get three DVD's with over 12 hours of balloon instructions on so a good value for money price.
If you joined you may then decide to come along to a two day event and meet everyone.

I started to watch Paul Bellanger' tape on Slim Jim balloons but have stopped half way through so will finish this off tomorrow and perhaps even get onto tape three for this
weekend as I need to catch up a bit if I'm going to make the 52 for the year.

Quote from: "Parcival"My choice: Ken Stillman's Balloonclick.

I'm not sure I have this right Parcival but do you want Nippy to review Balloon Click? It's a forum not a DVD/CD

Then the hound dog which when I purchased the tape I struggled with the technique to make this, I made two tonight with no problem at all.
The frog below which is still a one balloon is the one I went over to use as the frog Ralph explained on the tape does have a lot of pressure on the balloon and if needing to work quickly
I found that I did pop the odd one now and again but this may have been because of me and not the technique. The frog and dog are made using the same technique.

Number 22

Ralph Dewey, Dewey's Advanced Balloons.

I do remember buying this at the millennium jam and at a guess it would have been 2001 although there is no date saying when the DVD was produced. There is no content on the outer covers so it's not till you view the tape and yes it is a tape that you know what you will be viewing. In fact I used to make the frog all the time form this but had yet again forgotten about it so a good memory jogger for me yet again.

On the tape was, A Bicycle, Buzz Danger The Space Ranger, I wonder who that could be? Hound Dog, Frog, Roaring Tiger which is where I got the idea for the head of my one balloon cat which is similar but a slight variation and Goofus.
All the models were usable but the larger ones probably not practical for quick and easy but certainly attention getters most definitely especially when you think that the tape is at least 10 years old. Ralph passes on some nice tips and tricks of the trade especially about drawing on a balloon and then letting it down before inflating it again for the head of Buzz Danger.

This is the frog Ralph explains on the tape, a very nice one balloon frog.

Edit, I just found the date the tape was produced 2000.