Part 2. Working with Colour Trends - Shades of Blue

Let's look at what other colours are 'hot' for 2015?

Pantone® has released their top colours for the spring season and have chosen the theme

  "En Plien Air" ("in the open air").

Cool, refreshing and calming shades of blue will be trending this season with Aquamarine topping the charts!

Blue is a very popular colour combination for many different occasions, some of the more obvious ones being the celebration of a new baby boy, male birthdays, "Under the Sea" theme parties and of course the famous "Tiffany" theme...

U.S. Patent No. 6,758,715

8 tips to make communion season a success for your business.

As a continuation to our communion season series of blogs, our guest contributors Luc Bertrand, WAW Balloons, Belgium, Tania Torre, Balloon Express Shop, Terme Vigliatore, Italy, Vanessa Moscardini, Balloon Express Shop, Firenze, Italy and Anne Cahill McGovern, Elegant Balloons, Pearl River, New York, USA share some top tips that will help you to make the communion season a success for your business.

Communion Cross design by Tope Abulude 

Make sure to market well

Design by Anne Cahill McGovern CBA

Anne: We market to "mom's groups” on Facebook, 

local parenting groups on 

Facebook, and local business pages and town pages on Facebook.  On Fridays, we list in about 10 different sites and this has been very successful for the communion bookings. (We also do this for graduations).

We visit our local Catholic churches with "communion" postcards and photos of our work with a "special coupon" the churches will hand these out to the CCD classes (religious education) as long as we are offering something special for them.

Do communions vary from country to country and how important are they for balloon businesses?

Communion Butterflies 

First Communion is considered one of the holiest and most important occasions in a Roman Catholic person's life. It is the first time that a person receives the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, which is the eating of consecrated bread and drinking of consecrated wine. 

Illuminated Cross
#38465

When boys and girls make their First Holy Communion, it’s a big occasion for Catholic families. Like their Baptism, the day of First Communion is one filled with family, friends, and feasting after the sacred event has taken place in church.

Cross & Doves available in Pearl White with Gold Ink # 86384
and Pearl White with Silver Ink #84560

Working with Colour Trends - Marsala

Colour play's an important part of our lives, so how are we influenced by colour trends? 

Each year specialists from many industries including fashion, pop culture, technology, music and travel scour the globe in search of emerging colour trends. Colour trends are not, as you might imagine, found by simply seeing what's it hot in the fashion world, they are actually inspired by global influences that reflect the spirit of the time.

Each year Pantone announces the Colour of Year. The colour is determined by a select group of people who between them, debate and eventually chose the colour on it's agreed merits.

To give you an example, in 2013 Emerald was selected as the Colour of the Year. It was felt that the colour Emerald represented growth, renewal, and prosperity and in turn could be associated with the changing  economy as it began to recover.

The 2015 'Colour of the Year' has been named Marsala - a "naturally robust and earthy wine red'.

Pantone suggest that this colour will "encourage creativity and experimentation" and is "both dramatic and at the same time grounding".

Part 2. Sport is officially everywhere giving balloon professionals some great decor opportunities!

As a nation we are surrounded by sport, sport related activities, sporting events and global sporting occasions. 

In part 2 of this blog we continue to look at ballooning opportunities at sporting events. If you missed part 1 click HERE.

Balloon professional David Saker of Balloon.co.uk shares his experiences and some great tips.

David Saker - www.balloon.co.uk

We've worked on the World Badminton finals at the NIA for the past 4 years. Usually they go for a floating balloon arch which is walked on and off after each final.

World Badminton Final - Arch by David Saker

Elegant or fun, there is alway's something perfect for Mother's Day.

How we present our balloon's to our customer's can make the difference between selling a single balloon versus a complete design. Here are a few ideas that are perfect for Mother's Day!

'I Love you M♡M' says it all, add it to an arrangement of 'Smile Face Flowers' and we have a wonderful gift!

This design was very simple to make. I found a range of lovely inexpensive tin jugs at my local floral wholesaler and simply secured a 'cup' from a Cup and Stick inside the jug - I used the stick to make the stems of the Smile Face Flowers and use these to secure the design in place. The vase can be filled with treats such as sweets and candy.

This design is very elegant using the 'To a Wonderful Mum Cupcake' 18" # 90585 . The addition of the precision bubbles and bow around the edge of the balloon really make a lovely finishing touch and also add's value to this design.

'Brighten her day with Balloons' - A little inspiration for Mother's Day

Mother's Day is celebrated by over 50 countries around the world, but not all on the same date. Starting in February in Norway going right through to December in Indonesia, each country celebrates their date according to custom or religion.

The Greeting Card Association estimates that more than 150 million Mother’s Day cards are exchanged in the U.S. every year, making Mother’s Day the third largest card-sending holiday after Christmas and Valentine’s Day.

In the UK, the Greetings Card Association states that Mother's Day remains the largest Spring Seasons card sending event, with a value of £50.40m.

Knowing how successful a comparative industry is on key seasonal dates such as Mother's Day is a good benchmark for our industry.

With less than 4 weeks until we celebrate Mother's Day in the UK, I thought it might be a good time to look at some ideas that we can promote to our customers, however for those of you in other parts of the world, you have a little more time to prepare.

Firstly, have you checked out all the great Qualatex balloon designs for this season? 

Click HERE for a direct link