February 16 - Simber

On the final day of the book fair, the author of "The Unwanteds" series, Lisa McMann came in to talk to the kids and sign books.  One of the notable characters from the covers of her books is "Simber", a giant winged cheetah made out of sand.

The balloon is Nao Osaka's panther body with wings similar to Larry Moss' Canadian goose.  Since most of my time was spent making Pancake Man, this was made in a bit of a rush -- and the wings were actually built that morning during the pancake breakfast.

There are a lot of things that I would do differently next build ... but I won't go into the problems when they are almost all attributed to the rush job this was.

Simber was later taken to a local book store for an event with Lisa and given away as a prize drawing to two young fans.

This is so much cooler than travelling with Aslan!

February 15 - Pancake Chef

Griddle cakes, pancakes, hot cakes, flapjacks: why are there four names for grilled batter and only one word for love?

~ George Carlin

On the last day of the book fair the school also held a pancake breakfast and wanted a "something balloon" leaving much of the details up to me. Again, the theme was Peace & Love - but I didn't want to build the same gigantic hearts I had in the previous year, nor do a bunch of random decorations because it's a huge space to fill and I was still busy with the last delivery piece for the book fair.

... and so the day before I decided on Pancake Man using a face design from Phileas Flash's Face of Things to Come. The original idea was to have a pancake mid-flip, but that never came together and so I built the stove to go along with him instead. I think the stove ended up being a good distraction for the "kids who couldn't resist touching". I tried a couple ideas for pancakes, people preferred the smoother look of a stuffed round.

I wish I had chosen either a different color for his shirt or a different color for his apron as they kind of get jumbled up in the images.

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Other posts with Phileas' designs:


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February 14 - Peace

Ev'rybody's talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m.

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

~ John Lennon Give Peace a Chance

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here are some of the additional decorations I made for the book fair this last week.

I was originally going to skip posting these images since I thought they were a little basic in comparison to some of the other designs of the book fair. But I do like them, and I think "Peace" makes a perfect companion to the "Love" on this day.

The big one was made based on an image I saw in the balloon forums a while ago, but I've since lost the link.

February 13 - Diary of a Wimpy Kid

“The only reason I get out of bed at all on weekends is because eventually I can't stand the taste of my own breath any more.”

~ Jeff Kinney Diary of a Wimpy Kid

There was a whole section dedicated to Diary of a Wimpy Kid at the school book fair this past week, so I knew this would fit in.

Twistina Christine Belcher posted an image of her version online a few months ago.  I can't imagine doing it better, it was so well done - so I just attempted to recreate it.  There are a couple things I might do differently if I built it again, but I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt.

I'm really bad about taking pictures after I've brought balloons anywhere, I drop-off and run. So thank you to my friends - Sarah, for taking some pictures for me to play with, and Scott, for the drawn version of Purple I used.

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Other posts with Christina's designs:



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February 12 - Flower Girl

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.

~ Pablo Neruda

It tends to be stressful to try and get a bunch of designs ready for one day.  Depending on what you are making - you might have to start a day or so in advance, and there are inevitable compromises that have to be made. I'm not great at that kind of planning, so I like the way I have been able to participate in this week long event. Every day I bring one new large delivery style piece which hopefully has the effect of people coming back every day to see what's new.

This girl with flowers is one of Anastasya Sokol's designs - I've been wanting to build more of her designs and felt it was appropriate because the Peace/Love/Books fair because the flowers are made out of hearts.

This is a fantastic balloon design, I love the way Anastasya creates hair, and having her clutching a bundle of flowers is a perfect way to have a simple body.

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Other posts with Anastasya's designs:
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February 11 - Sean's Car (1.0)

Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye (A seed’s a star)
Lolo Ye Kesse De Ye (A star’s a seed)
Diame, Diame (peace and more peace)

~ Stevie Wonder Kesse Ye Lolo De Ye

This week was the annual book fair at my sons school, and the second year that I've been asked to help decorate.

Last year the theme was Alice in Wonderland, so objects to build were plentiful -- this year's theme was "Peace, Love & Books". I was initially a bit stumped ... but I'll be showing over the next couple days what I came up with. All the pictures were taken on site, I didn't know if I was going to use them for this blog or not - but I'm pretty proud of a few of them.

I have been looking for a good excuse to build Sean Rogers car design (1.0 - he just recently released a 2.0 version). It's an elegantly rounded compared to some other designs I've seen, it worked great as a VW Bug convertible.  It's no wonder he has video of someone wearing it while doing flips on a trampoline, it's practically a tank. Dave is a good sport, and occasionally my Devin (reference). A couple times a year I get to dress him in something bizarre and/or humiliating while he directs traffic and draws attention to a school event.

The center of the hood was supposed to be white, but I popped it right as I was pulling it out of my van.  Thankfully I had some spare balloons and it was the center one so I didn't have to worry about color symmetry.

February 10 - Party Hats

“Some hats can only be worn if you're willing to be jaunty, to set them at an angle and to walk beneath them with a spring in your stride as if you're only a step away from dancing. They demand a lot of you.”
~ Neil Gaiman Anansi Boys

I mentioned yesterday that I got a last minute request for balloons at my youngest sons birthday party - we decided on party hats.

I should say thankfully we decided on party hats.  These do not take much time to put together at all, and they are as abstract/pure form creative play with balloons as you can get.

This idea and a few of these designs are from Addi Somekh's website and documents. As great as some of them turned out, I also had some stinkers - since the guests were occupied for most of the hour jumping on trampolines, I had plenty of time to make extras.

What I didn't have time for was doing anything too special with Purple today ...

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Other posts with Addi's designs:


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