This week we are joined by Mark Drury from Qualatex and he demonstrates ways of decorating Deco bubbles with acrylic paint and shares some solutions he has come up with that will minimise mess and time.

There are endless possibilities as to the designs you can create using acrylic paint – you can use different coloured paints and clear or patterned deco bubbles. The paint you should ideally use inside the bubbles is water-based paint, as these paints don’t have a strong chemical odour and have a quick drying time.

Mark has been experimenting with different solutions to put the paint into the balloons. One solution he has come up with is using a pipette. He cuts the top part off a pipette, leaving a bit just at the top of the tube. The pipette is closed off at the end so you will need to snip a little bit off here for the paint to go through.

He takes a tube of acrylic paint and takes off the screw top lid. The pipette then goes through the hole in the lid and sits in place. He then screws the lid back onto the paint tube. The paint can then be squeezed up and through the pipette, so you then have an easier and more precise way of aiming the paint where you want it inside the bubble.

As acrylic paint dries quickly, Mark uses a small piece of a 160Q with a knot tied on the end to feed onto the end of the pipette which will stop any air getting in when you’re not using it.

For acrylic to dry it needs some air so before putting paint inside the bubble, Mark inflates it slightly using a hand pump. To put the paint inside, he feeds the pipette up through the neck of the balloon and pulls the balloon down so he can reach the point where he wants to put the paint. He then squeezes out the paint in several areas inside the balloon and once done takes the tube back out.

You can then use an old bank card or a similar item to make some shapes and patterns with the paint from the outside of the balloon. Mark then uses another colour paint and repeats the same process. Once happy with the design you then inflate the bubble with a little bit more air to help the paint dry and then you can use helium for the rest.

Mark demonstrates another design using a Clear Deco Bubble and creates a hand impression inside the balloon but without the mess that comes with dipping your hand in paint! His solution is to create an impression of a hand on a piece of kitchen roll by putting your hand in a bowl of water and then pressing down flat on the kitchen roll. You will have a faint handprint impression which you can then use as a template. You then take the clear deco bubble, inflate slightly with air and then place the bubble flat over the hand template on the kitchen roll.

You then take your chosen paint colour and feed the pipette into the neck of the bubble and put some paint in places around the hand template. Once this is done you then take your hand and press down on the outside of the balloon to spread the paint and this will help create a more defined handprint. The bubble can then be inflated with helium and tied at the neck and then tied to a balloon weight.

Anna-Jayne

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