How do.

There are a few of us from round your way. Fairby and Fungus for example.
I'm Wirral based.

Ken Stillmans alien hitch-hiker has become a must for me. 4 balloons but fast simple twisting and massive wow-factor

Cool

What purpose have you in mind?


I was given a balloon copter for christmas

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalo ... CFMQ8wIwAQ

The balloons are a lot lighter than normal, can't say I've compared pressure though

You'll probably need something more than a hand pump to blow them up. I've only used a manual floor pump to any extent myself which would be better, but my guess is that electric is the way to go for this job. Perhaps someone could advise.

I'd very very much like to come, but transport is an issue at the moment, so can't give a definite yet.

Why does Santa have three gardeners?

To do all the ho ho hoe-ing

And how do I get into the club zone? I hear tell of unspeakable balloon naughtiness and therefore wish to belong.

My gut reaction is that keeping the review section private is the sort of thing that would get me to sign up for a site.
Whether this would translate into active participation I don't know.
And attracting the likes of me is possibly a bad idea anyway.

Captain Visual's Big Book Of Balloon Art is widely tipped as the best collection of designs for beginners. It used to be very scarce and expensive, but is now available on Lulu.com at a reasonable price.

I think that you can comfortably get away with a quite a small number of balloons.

Dog, sausage dog, squirrel, giraffe can all be made by varying the proportions of the basic one balloon dog model.

One balloon horse and dinosaur are both essentially variants of another

Learn to do these and mount them on a simple hat or heart and you have a surprisingly large number of permutations available.

Add a two-balloon twisted braid for wands and a fancier hat, and a simple flower.

That makes half a dozen "base models". I reckon that will keep most punters happy. It won't make your reputation as a pro twister but will get you quite a long way if you get them right.

Next on my list would be bunny, cat and monkey. Swords are a must, but beware of the chaos that often occurs if you do them for groups.

Quote from: "Chris_kimber"Ate there different types of floor pumps? You mention mac pump? I've thought filbert was the only one?

Thanks,

Chris

Mac pumps are the ones Graham sells on the qualatex site.

As far as I know, they are hand made individually. If someone set up a chinese manufacturing deal, they'd be about a fiver each.
Also, they are all made in the states. Both supply and demand are erratic I would imagine, which makes it tricky for the middleman.

I've talked to a few people about making some in UK, but nothing has come of it yet. Might be a nice pocket money sideline for someone with a workshop handy, but no fortune to be made.

I did think about making one for myself , but I reckoned the grief of getting the first one right wouldn't be worth it, so I just coughed up for a macpump. I've never met anyone who regretted buying their floor pump.

It might be worth looking at buying from an overseas supplier. Your order would cost me about the equivalent of 90 dollars from a UK supplier. Don't be shy about asking for a trade discount. Of course there would be shipping to pay for and there would be the chance that the balloons would be subject to adverse temperatures in transit, but it might be worth it.

These days I wouldn't be without printed alien heads and 5 inch clear to do alien hitch-hikers; easy, fast and people absolutely love them. Red hearts are very useable for quickly adding zing to wands and hats. 5 inch blush for various heads. Those  would be my suggestions if your emphasis is on making balloons in front of people.

Best of luck. I wish I had discovered twisting at your age.