Monday 6th August 2018
10am – 5pm Only £50
includes drinks, lunch and free parking
You’ll find the Balloon Forest inside the Willow Suit at Greshams, 312 Tuddenham Rd, Ipswich IP4 3QJ
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Last Summer, with the support of BAPIA, we lead a team of balloon artists to build a forest made from balloons, ready for local children to enjoy activities in and this year, with support from BAPIA and Balloon Market we are back and want to go even bigger!
We are taking over a starlit venue and, as well as building a moonlit forest, we will using Qualatex Quicklinks to build a castle stage and create unicorns and princesses to fill the space.
This hands-on workshop will last just one day and see the venue transformed. The team will lead you in building large sculptures, organic structures as well as smaller designs that you can recreate and sell.
A perfect opportunity to work with an award winning team to create an impressive design to showcase your talents to prospective clients.
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Course Tutors
Samuel Stamp-Dod, CBA
Samuel Stamp-Dod trained as a balloon artist with Qualatex from the late 1990s and gained his CBA (Certified Balloon Artist) qualification in 2005. His company, VIP Balloons is a member of the Qualatex Balloon Network, giving customers the assurity that they deliver a quality product, make ongoing training and education a priority and uphold honourable business practices.
Samuel has won several awards for his balloon art at international competitions, including gaining two awards at The World Balloon Convention this Spring, and strives to be innovative with his customer’s designs ensuring he delivers the ‘wow factor’.
He has worked in the leisure and tourism industry, as well as the education sector, before turning his ‘hobby job’ of ten years into a full-time career in 2013. As a young adult Samuel worked with Lesley Dophin and Mark Murphy on their Saturday morning programmes at BBC Radio Suffolk as a Radio Production Assistant.
VIP Balloons, based in Ipswich, specialises in creating bespoke balloon décor for all occasions and often will be found making sculptures and personalised designs for clients across the UK
Samuel decided to create ‘Inflated Inspirations’ last summer as he wanted to open people’s eyes to how balloons can be used as a medium to create art and cannot wait to create another design this year.
Mike Hurst, CBA
Mike entered the balloon almost by accident when his wife felt she needed to add another element to her face painting business. During this addition, she had a job offer that was too good to turn down, and Mike being self-employed started playing with balloons!
In a relatively short career, he has built a home-based business into a small retail shop in Northamptonshire, attended conventions in foreign countries, become a certified balloon artist, travelled to Israel to teach balloon personalisation and will soon be running a class in his home town how to make large scale balloon numbers. He gained two awards at the World Balloon Convention in San Diego this year and in 2017 he won a competition for deliverable balloon bouquets and went on to represent the UK in the worldwide final.
Mike has built a name for himself as a great designer using Qualatex Quicklinks, recently running course on how to build giant numbers from them.
Mike enjoys working on large projects and jumped at the chance to be involved in this event and hopes to bring his experience in linking balloons to the Big Build whilst also hopeful of learning new techniques from other balloon artists involved.
Natalie Saunders
Natalie Saunders describes herself as always having been a bit ‘crafty’. Growing up she made everything, jewellery, bridal headdresses, clothes, cakes… you name it, she has done it! Sixteen years ago her friend asked her to decorate her wedding with balloons. She’d never touched a balloon before but gave it a go and realised that she was actually quite good! A few months later she got herself trained as a balloon professional and hasn’t looked back since.
Natalie has been running a successful balloon decorating business, The Balloon Room, in Stevenage for fifteen years and absolutely loves it. She continually goes to new training courses and have recently qualified to teach Balloon Artistry. She has recently returned from South Africa where she was responsible for designing and building several balloon sets for an American TV commercial for Party City which will air later this year.
Natalie has had the pleasure of working on some amazing jobs, London Fashion Week, Harrods window displays, the Big Brother House as well as big brands like Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
In 2017 Natalie helped on an art exhibition called Cherophobia which was supporting an artist ten feet from the ground with 20,000 latex balloons! Natalie says she is so glad to be involved with the Balloon Forest Big Balloon Build project and can’t wait to start.
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For details of the children’s activities that will take place once the balloon forest has been completed, click here
