I recently made this and this is my new all time favorite sculpture I have made. I literally worried myself sick over this project and felt like running away and crying and quitting because of how much it intimidated me. I was somehow able to channel my Woody Allen like neurosis into productive energy, lol. I am still in disbelief that I made this! I really feel like I leveled up in my balloon making. This is my baby.

A quote that keeps me focused and that keeps me from running away from scary projects is this, "A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it. An amateur is a man who can't do his job when he does feel like it." James Agate. My commitment to being professional trumps my insecurity,lol.

More pics on my blog. http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... rmtrooper/

I recently made this Ken Stillman Snowy Princess holding an Edward Trzeciakiewicz basket accompanied by a Patricia Balloona original Grumpy Dwarf.

More pics on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... mpy-dwarf/.

I don't know why- but I cannot make a decent Om Nom to save my life,lol. It is my shame balloon,lol.

I am just not happy with any of the versions I have made,lol. Does anyone else feel this way about anything?

I made this display for a Daddy and Daughter Date Night Event at a Chick-fil-A near my house.
I took inspiration from a Justin Reams' cow mask  I had seen a picture of and ran with it, put my own twist on things and came up with the below. This was a labor of love.
 
Bigger pics on blog,
http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/

This is a Patricia Balloona original design. I wanted to originally call it, Look Ma! No Pole! but I decided on Hugs and Kisses instead,lol.

As always bigger and more pictures on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... es-column/

I made my first Intertwined Hearts and it is huge- as long as my couch and takes up pretty much the entire wall in my living room,lol. I JUST LOVED MAKING THIS!!!!!!!!!!!

More and bigger pictures on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... tertwined/

I have been playing around wanting to make a centerpiece for the blossoming romance piece.

I made several different versions but this is my personal favorite so far. I still want to experiment further.

More pictures and version on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... nterpiece/

I altered a design available through the QBN website, I can't remember if one needs to be a QBN member or not to access it. It is titled Blossoming Romance and was designed by Jodie White, a CBA from the U.K.

Here is MY version of Blossoming Romance. I made this yesterday. I am proud of how I did the  color scheme. The Blossoming Romance in the QBN thing had wild berry and jewel magenta and I decided to go with gold and yellow, though I messed with double stuffing them with white to get the color nuances I wanted.

More details and such on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... g-romance/. You will have to forgive the roughness of my background. I am just now starting to play around with backgrounds and this was more just an experiment of what all I need to do.

I was inspired by Michael Floyd's small Pinkie Pie on his Balloon Win Fail, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJi8YSLiaJw.

I ran with the approach he uses and made a 3ft tall Pinkie Pie and also adapted it and made a Rainbow Dash.
I am soooo excited! I love My Little Pony and now I can make them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have t-shirts and MLP wallets and I am just as excited about it as my 5 year old daughter,lol. Balloons and Peter Pan Complexes go very well together,lol. She is modeling with Rainbow Dash below.

More pictures on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... inkie-pie/

I made this all for a room decorating contest. I am still waiting to hear the results! Arg.

I slightly altered Nifty Balloon's penguin to not have gaps and added some eyelashes and also some babies.

The 7 ft snowman is something I personally came up with, you can tell I used what I learned from the Jumbo series.

This time I made the arch come together in the center.

I made a bear to go in the middle and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and a wheat weave wreath.

and of course another Jumbo Santa and Christmas Tree.

My daughter is modeling in the pics to give size perspective.

I am sooo hoping to eventually become a décor only business, that would be my dream. I love making big big things that fill up a room. This was a huge classroom, just huge and decorating it made me the happiest I have ever been.

I made a YouTube video of it, //http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYaImIaygM0&list=PLc7Vp9UJCy4_pujYWIoJGJg33V6FlMwCu&index=18

More and better pics on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... onderland/

I am soooooo excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I made my first arch and I got to make seriously big things which is what I love to do most! I want to eventually specialize in décor and big displays.

I added some touches to Nifty Balloons Jumbo Santa, thanks to suggestions from a friend of mine named Chris. I added white under the belt and above the belt down the middle of the belly and also on top of the boots. It really made it pop! lol

Thanks to a friend of mine who walked me through Home Depot and who has an engineering brain, I was able to make and assemble my own bases and poles and am not intimidated by hardware or hardware stores anymore,lol. I made the arch structure and Christmas tree base and pole in such a way that I can easily take everything apart, reuse it, and easily fit it in my car. I really liked learning how Nifty Balloons make bases for their Jumbos but didn't want to risk it on the tree and so made a sturdier one for that.

I was inspired by Lily Tan on her reindeer, I saw a picture and adapted it and put my own touches on it. I love her arches and one day want to make arches like her.

I figured the tree out by looking at a picture on google but added my own style to the ornamentation. I tried to keep the color scheme in harmony.

I also made a wheat weave wreath. Say that 10 times fast! lol

More and better pictures on my blog. http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... tree-arch/

My husband does extensive research on the Entertainment Industry as a whole including both the Business side and its cultural impact. He has found a very fascinating parallel between Balloon Art and the beginnings of Rock Music in Britain back in the 1960′s. He theorizes that based on these connections that Balloon Art is quite possibly on the cusp of a Golden Age and are about to pop into mainstream like we have never before seen.

His blog post about this subject in the link below.

http://thoughtfulmirth.wordpress.com/20 ... o-explode/

I was hired to make these yesterday for a school's fall carnival. I was sick to my stomach nervous about the project. I was so nervous I had a fantasy of just running away into a cave in the mountains. Doing decorations and displays is what I want to do most, and because of that I am more afraid to fail in those arena's. I remembered this quote I read in my book of quotes and it kept me going,lol.  

"A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it. An amateur is a man who can't do his job when he does feel like it." James Agate

Boy howdy I don't care how nervous or scared I am to fail, I am going to be a professional! LOL

Digital pictures and more about it on my blog,
http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... ornucopia/

I love anything that helps with self understanding and awareness, lol.

I love Strength's Finder and Meyer's Briggs.

Just curious if anyone else is and even more curious to know what their results are.

For Meyers Briggs I am an INFJ.

My top five strength finders talent results are
Empathy, Input, Ideation, Connectedness and Activator.

Does anyone else go through this here? I am curious as to how folks in the balloon community feel about this and relate to this and how you all deal with it.

I know that for me, if ever I make something super awesome or anything that I get a feeling of competence and accomplishment, I will get super excited and just be on cloud nine.

After I expend all that energy and excitement, I then totally crash and get real low and also very insecure,lol. Insecure about my abilities and if I can repeat the same level or rise a higher level. Now it is nothing major. I get over it after a day or 2. It is just something I have noticed with any kind of artistic endeavor I have partaken in. Part of it I think is just some kind of emotional law of gravity, you spend sooo much energy making something and if you like it or are proud of it or if it gets a big response from others, then you continue to spend energy flying high on positive emotions and excitement, so much so that you run out of gas as it were. Once out of gas you are simply exhausted and in a weakened state and perhaps fall a bit down. A friend has pointed out that the critical voice and insecurity actually helps to keep you humble and open for improvement. The up and downs an ever moving pendulum seeking for a balanced state of relishing victory and yet never being satisfied with yourself so much that you become stagnate and cease to grow.  

Is this simply the fartsiness that comes with artsiness? How do you deal with this if you can relate or what is your experience?

I would also like to add that one way that I know that I have truly found my passion, is that my passion for this endeavor trumps any emotional or confidence state I find myself in.

It is worth the artistic roller coaster and I find that the passion exceeds my ego, so even if I feel insecure or even if I fall on my face, I will get up because in the end it isn't about me, it is about how I just can't not do this, I simply have to do it, it self's me.

The self takes a back seat because the passion is more important, and ironically the passion will give more and more of a satisfying sense of self.

I made an elephant themed number 1 for one birthday party and a sports themed number 5 for another birthday party.

I love making these things man! I of course incorporated Scott Tripp's baseball glove and Nifty Balloon Football helmet for the 5. For the 1 I made a smaller Nifty balloons elephant mask. More pictures on my blog.

I made a golf club and a golf ball going into a hole as well as some blades of grass accents for the 5.

More pics of my 5 here, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... -number-5/.



More pics of elephant version here,
http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/?s=elephant+1

I made this for my daughter's speech therapist as a parting gift as she is moving on in her career.

More pictures on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... oo-parody/.

I made my first tree and I managed to do it in 3 and a half hrs and that includes blowing up the balloons by mouth with a friend,lol. How in the world I met my deadline I will never know, it was divine intervention,lol. I had to figure everything out and just used a picture as reference,lol. It was like jazz music man, just improv until something sounded, or in this case, looked good,lol.  

The 6 is my first 6 and the Pegasus unicorn is my first time adapting Nifty Balloon's ride inside design. I had made the ride inside before but never as a Pegasus.

This is what I came up with for a friend who hired me to make a kind of fantasy birthday balloon ensemble,lol.

I made the 6 and Pegasus at home in the morning and was really pressed for time. I made the tree at my friend's house. I did as best as I could with what time I had. One of the brown balloons on the tree trunk popped but I didn't dare mess with anything,lol.


 
More and better pics on my blog, http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... -and-tree/.

I also have a link to a youtube video I made for it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxuD9IdvJeE

I came across this picture and was very intrigued by the chain like design on the dragon body. Does anyone know what technique this is  called?

I was inspired by the balloon numbers I saw here and decided to give it a go. Thank you guys for posting those pics, they are amazing and incredibly inspiring! I had to just look at pictures and try to figure it out as best as I could. I had a double birthday party for 2 kids turning three, one a boy and the a girl. The boy is into pirates so I made a pirate themed 3 and the girl is into princesses so I made a girly princessy 3,lol.

I wanted to make it so that the kids could go up to the numbers and take things off, kind of like a gift tree as it were.

The number 1 was my first number and the black kitty cat is my translation and version of a picture of a cat I saw Dylan Gelinas make.

More pics on my blog,  
3's http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... -number-3/

1 and cat
http://patriciaballoona.wordpress.com/2 ... kitty-cat/