This week on BMTV we are joined for the first time by Matt Lewis! Matt joins us to tell us a bit about how he started out in the industry and his journey to where he is today. He also shows us how to make a lovely Tulle infused bubble and we also talk about his upcoming Grand Balloon Tour 2 with Stuart Davies which is being hosted at Balloon Market on Friday 9th August 2019.

Matt’s career started out in window dressing in large department stores and he was involved in creating the in-store and window displays. He had to come up with the design and what products to display on the day. The way window displays were created and designed changed after a few years as you were given a diagram to follow which Matt says meant there wasn’t much creativity involved in the job anymore.

From here he went on to work for Hilton Hotels doing some of their promotion work and events. One day around 30 years ago whilst working for them he was asked by someone to do balloons for a function and it was then he did his first set of three balloons on a table, tied to a candelabra!

He was also asked for printed balloons by the same person and didn’t know where to get hold of them. He eventually found a supplier in Birmingham who had an off-set print machine. The person who owned the printers asked Matt to work for them on a freelance basis and from there things evolved. He was introduced to a lot of people within the balloon industry and built up a lot of friendships over the years.

Matt has been lucky enough to work on lots of exciting projects and has worked with some big names! He was involved with an episode of An Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington which involved trying to lift Karl with 8ft chloroprene balloons which wouldn’t work so Warwick Davis ended up being strapped into a harness and launched into the air! He has also been lucky enough to do balloon drops for several Black Sabbath concerts over the years!

Matt then demonstrates how to put together a tulle infused bubble design, which Chris Horne originally started doing a few years ago starting with a 11-inch clear balloon and Matt was the one who came up with the name and it has stuck to this day!

Firstly, you take a 24-inch Deco Bubble and slightly inflate it with helium – just enough to open it up. You then take a funnel and place it in the neck of the balloon and hold in one hand. With your other hand take the 9 metres of yellow tulle and feed one end up into the funnel. You can then feed the tulle using a balloon stick, pushing the tulle through the funnel and up into the balloon.

You can then inflate your deco bubble to the desired size and then twist the neck and secure with a 260Q latex balloon. Matt then takes some nylon line and attaches a piece to the deco bubble so he can then secure it to a balloon base made up of two sets of clusters. To hide the knot at the bottom of the balloon he attaches a piece of yellow satin ribbon (25mm width) and another piece (10mm width) – he mentions that it is the small details that are most important!

To incorporate the balloon with the base he adds some yellow tulle into the balloon base by attaching two pieces of tulle to either end of a white 260Q. He then wraps the 260Q around the base to secure, with the two pieces of tulle positioned in the centre of the base.

On Friday 9th August 2019 we will be hosting The Grand Balloon Tour 2 where Matt and Stuart Davies will be teaching about organic designs including how to sell the designs. Areas they will cover include adding textures, foliage and how to use balloon shine.

For more information and how to book on The Grand Balloon Tour 2 click here

To view our other training courses click here

Anna-Jayne

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