November 12 - Rainbow Orchid

"Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings."

~ Wassily Kandinsky

Making flowers and arranging flowers are related, but separate skill sets.

This orchid design comes from the Gala Day YouTube channel. I had the opportunity to create a beautiful, thoughtfully coordinated arrangement, and the color I chose?  All of them.

Choosing "rainbow" as a color feels like the artistic equivalent to someone asking what you'd like for dinner and answering "food".

... and yet, somehow, quite consistently, they turn out beautiful.  The rainbow effect?  Best not to question it.

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by or inspired by Gala Day balloon channel:

November 11 - Sunflowers

"I have brought my light to join the carnival of lamps."

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Every year, some good friends of ours host a Diwali celebration.  They put an incredible amount of work into bringing people together (over 100 guests this year!).  Food is at the heart of the celebration, and not only is she an amazing cook, but many of the dishes are particularly meaningful.  Recipes passed down from her mother, the same meals that have probably been bringing families and friends together like this for generations.

I built these sunflowers as a bit of light to add to the festivities.  I'll confess that I still get a little self-conscious bringing something I've made as a gift.  It feels a little ... presumptuous maybe?  

Maybe I'm just carrying some baggage from my years of making festive hats out of recycled AOL disks.

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by or inspired by Vici Balloons:

November 10 - Sakura Blossoms

"Some of our greatest historical and artistic treasures we place in museums; others, we take for walks."

~ Roger Caras

There might be a better picture of the balloons, but when your sweet boy wanders into the shot and mugs for the camera, you take the shot.

This Sakura arrangement is actually the design that started me down the Vici Balloons rabbit hole.  Viktoria's arrangement is spectacular, so stylized, and the flowers are much more interesting to build than I would have initially thought.

There's also a certain satisfaction to getting it all just right when you've got 20-30 things branching off a central connection point, all needing the right pressure.

And, yes.  He's a good boy. :)

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by or inspired by Vici Balloons:

November 9 - Vibrant Tropicana

"Nature has a great simplicity and, therefore, a great beauty."

~ Richard Feynman

Sabiha Anjoom Samia is owner and founder of Gala Day, a flower-focused YouTube channel.  This is their 207th(!!) flower design, the latest at the time I made it, called the Vibrant Tropicana.

I believe most of the flowers in their collection are inspired by real flowers, with the focus being more on the individual blossoms.  (*In hindsight I should use the same colors instead of picking from my 'messy pile'.)

Flowers like these reminds me a little of kirigami.  You learn one fold/twist and connect these repetitions into something big and beautiful.


(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by or inspired by Gala Day balloon channel:

November 7 - Poppy

"And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye and soothing to the smell."

~ The Wicked Witch of the West

This poppy is another one of the cool flower designs on Vici Balloons YouTube channel.

One thing I appreciate about Viktoria's flower balloon creations is her eye for the arrangement.  The flower itself is nice, but it was definitely her arrangement that got me wanting to build this.  

Side note ... I initially thought this eucalyptus color wasn't going to be for me, but I'm coming around to it.  

 

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by or inspired by Vici Balloons:

November 6 - Daisy

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

~ Albert Camus

Deceptively finicky.  That's a daisy.

Viktoria has a knack for these, apparently.  That or the patience of a saint, because her bouquet was enormous.   

For me, finding just the right amount of pressure to fit five petals together without having them sproing apart was a bit maddening.  

Individual flowers were fine, easy even - but each was a coiled mouse-trap, assembling the bouquet was a labor fit for Sisyphus.  Every flower head I would fix would sprizazzle another.

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by or inspired by Vici Balloons:

September 9 - Crysanthemum

"Why don't you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum."

~ P.G. Wodehouse

Usually learning something makes you feel a little smarter.

The exception to this is when you learn something so simple that you did not realize until that very point.

I was today years old when I learned that mums ... are chrysanthemums.  For some reason I never made the connection and just assumed it was a different type of flower.

Next I'll find out you can call my plate of taterno totomasticatius "tater tots" or something.
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This chrysanthemum design is one taught by Isopresso in the member section, kind of a "bloomin' onion" of petals in this one.

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

September 4 - Lillies

"The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think."

~ Aristotle

According to Greek myth, lilies sprang from drops of milk spilled by Hera, after Zeus snuck baby Hercules to her breast while she slept in a bid to grant him immortality.

The first philosopher had said flowers evolved to attract pollinators with specialized reproductive structures but the crowd threw olives at him until he fled the amphitheater.
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I found this flower design on the YouTube channel 艳华爱气球’ (Yanhua Loves Balloons). I love the look of big giant flowers but the top-heaviness makes them an interesting/difficult photograph.

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Other flower balloons:

August 30 - Tiny Rose

Send her my love, memories remain
Send her my love, roses never fade

~ Send Her My Love - Journey

I was looking through some PDFs I have meant to work my way through and found "Balloons that Bloom" by Twistina.

Christine Belcher puts an incredible amount of detail into showing a good variety of unique latex flowers, but I've been a bit intimidated to work past this tiny rose.

But a tiny rose is a start, not sure where we will end up at.  

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Twistina:

August 15 - Tulip

"Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower."

~ John Harrigan

Flowers are one of the most obvious thing to build with balloons - yet I spend very little time making them.   

I suppose part of that is not knowing where or how to photograph them.  The outdoor tray, being visually stunning itself, ends up distracting from the flowers in this case.

These tulips are something Isopresso demonstrated on his main channel, simple and sweet.   Another one to check off the list, gotta twist 'em all!

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

August 7 - Water Lily

"Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower."

~ John Harrigan

These water lilies are the latest balloons from the member section on Isopresso's channel.  

This was a lesson in following instructions - I've built similar things and assumed I had a better way to do go about things.  Then about halfway through the first lily pad I realized there was good purpose to the way they were doing things.  The back leaf is much cleaner/rounder.

Unless I already have something in mind, I will (try to) take a basic picture including purple pig, and then if I have the time and feel inspired, I'll try something more fun.  (Paint me like one of your French girls..)  That could be playing with the balloon setting, or using the image as a writing prompt.  

Let's see ... lily flowers, monster lilies, something living on them?  Underneath?  How about a caterpillar-like insect that eats the leaf, kind of a struggle to stay afloat and eat enough to cocoon?  ..  or maybe there are two and it's a mating ritual to eat the leaf in a certain pattern?  .. and like the lily is the opened cocoon?  Nah ... I better go work on the image.

(view other flowers)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Isopresso:

June 19 - Rainbow Flowers Kanesan

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light."

~ Theodore Roethke

I know I JUST made a rainbow flower, but Balloon Art Kanesan made such a cool one and kind of achieved the (what I had thought was) impossible.

Technically 7-petal flowers are at the very extent of tightness, they work great as a base - even if you lose a petal or even two, they still look like a flower. A 9-petal flower is like raising an auction bid by an amount that shocks the crowd.

A couple smart ideas that kind of come together to make this work.  My first attempt (as always) was a bit wonky, but not irredeemable by grouping the petals the right way.  It was a rough draft but as I look at it now - I like the sort of triangular face grouping the smaller color sections together.

(view other rainbows or flowers)

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Other balloons by and inspired by Balloon Art Kanesan:

June 17 - Rainbow Flowers

"Today you are You, that is truer than true.
 There is no one alive who is Youer than You."

~ Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday to You!

Not all rainbows come from the sky.

Some take root in the ground and bloom spontaneously when you aren't even expecting it.  

Give them light.  Give them room.  Give them love.

🌈

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(view other flowers)