Weather warning

The weather is going to be crazy this week; the worst storms for 144 years apparently! There’s going to be flooding, 70-80 mph winds and temperatures as low as -14 degrees. If trees are down, or roads are icy then delivery times are likely to be affected. We advise that you bear all this in mind when placing your order with us, particularly if you live in Scotland or the North of England. Also on the subject of delivery charge, it’s Black Friday on the 27^th November! Make sure to get your orders in early and avoid the rush.

Get lost in Belgium

Also in the balloon-news this week was this balloon maze that was constructed in Belgium for Millennium Jam, an international conference for balloon professionals. It took 3 days to make, contains 80,000 balloons and spans over 600 square metres, making it one huge balloon model! This was made using Qualatex QuickLink balloons, again showing the versatility of QuickLinks. Pretty A-maze-ing if you ask us!

Popular toy building block design

This is our new range of Block Party tableware, and yes, it does look like a well-known toy involving building blocks! They obviously couldn’t call it Lego, but this will be really popular for anyone having a Lego or toy themed party. It looks really good as well; check out the shadows on the napkins that give them a 3D effect! We have the usual range of tableware including napkins, tablecovers, cups and plates (both in 4” and 9” varieties). We also have the invitations and loot bags, which look just as impressive.

Are you feeling the love yet?

Nikki from Northstar came in this week to talk to us about Valentine’s Day stock. Yes, you heard that correctly; we have to start thinking about Valentine’s Day and Christmas isn’t even over yet! We are getting more products in from Northstar but we especially wanted to talk about their 9 inch heart balloons. These featured on the first ever episode of BMTV, and this heart has even stayed inflated ever since our Valentine’s Day debut last year! It is a bit squishy now, but it’s done quite well to stay up for 10 months. We are going to create a package with these balloons and sticks as their self-sealing valves will make great point-of-sale purchases for shops, restaurants and other establishments to give out on Valentine’s Day.

Funky Badges

Greg is 100 today, he looks good for his age doesn’t he? just kidding! This is our new range of Qualatex Rachel Ellen badges that we have in the 70, 80, 90 and 100 ages. We don’t have them in the lower ages yet as we already have those from other manufacturers. Seeing the quality of these however, we will definitely be getting the whole range in! What excites us about these is that they have a little stand that pops out of the back so these giant badges also double as cards! Some people might not like wearing badges that point out their age, so these are great for putting on mantelpieces or on somebody’s desk instead.

Retail-friendly latex

We have brought in a lot of new Qualatex latex retail packs that are aimed specifically at shops to sell on their shelves. These contain 6 latex balloons in various designs, such as age birthday or hen night balloons. These are perfect for those customers that just require a few balloons for an event, and don’t necessarily need to buy a big bag of balloons. Also, if you have a shop and inflate balloons for customers; you could get a couple of each design to cover the range and save yourself a bit of money on the larger bags. Some bags come in single colour and some are mixed, in order to cater to as many people as possible. Just a word of warning on the mixed-colour bags, the mix will vary between each bag so one might have more yellow, another may have more purple, and so on. They are packed by machine, so an even number can’t be guaranteed. Therefore we recommend you get 5 or 10 of each in so your customers can choose which colour they would prefer.

Shining star

These are the new plain colour holographic foil balloons from Qualatex. They used to have crystal-graphic balloons which were a similar concept but didn’t work as well. These look really great; they reflect the light to create a rainbow of colours that create a real shining star of a balloon! We have them in 6 colours: Green, red, blue, magenta, gold and (our favourite) silver.

Are you tying correctly?

We’ll end on a little how-to this week, as a customer recently asked us how to tie a foil balloon professionally. This may be second nature to some of you but can be confusing to people just starting out! In the past, we have seen people sell foil balloons with the ribbon tied straight onto the neck, which we think looks a bit scruffy! This is not how we do it, as we believe it’s the little touches (like a professionally tied balloon) that makes your work look that little bit better than your competition.

First thing to do is to prepare your ribbon. There is no specific measurement as to how long you need to leave for the tail, but we use the rule-of-thumb of holding the end of the ribbon in your forefinger and thumb, then pulling a length to your elbow. This is a quick but effective method that works every time!

Next find the valve on the balloon and place the ribbon about half-way up the neck. Fold the neck in half. Next roll the neck of the balloon around the ribbon until you reach the top. Now tie a knot in the ribbon and pull it tight; the rolled up neck will bend and be secured in place by the knot. Tie another knot though, just to make sure!

Now to the curling! Take a pair of closed scissors and run them along the underside (or dull-side) of the ribbon to create a curl. Applying more pressure will create a tighter curl, and less pressure a looser curl. If you find you aren’t happy with your curl, then simply run the scissors on the top of the ribbon to reverse the process and straighten it. You can keep trying this process until you find a curl that you like!

So, which would you rather sell? A balloon with the ribbon just tied onto the neck and no curl at all, or a nice even curl and neck that is neatly tucked away? You decide!

That’s it for this week, we’ll see you next time!

Rob

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