Recipes – the step-by-step procedure to make something is associated with cooking. These steps are either very simple or befuddling with coded symbols only people with cooking experience would quickly distinguish between Tbsp and tsp. Many times, you start the process just to learn at the very end that you need one more ingredient, which you do not have.
The balloon industry talks in recipes, but newbie’s ask for instructions. Wrong, ask for a recipe, not instructions. You will save yourself a lot of time and the headache of looking at 36 step-by-step instructions with pictures and text describing every little twist and turn to the point that you just either fast-forward through DVD or skimming the instructions to only key points. I’ve learned the more detailed the instructions, the more difficult and confusing the whole process becomes. Learn from recipes and avoid detailed instructions like the plague.
Entertainer’s do not have time for instructions, and if they do, you find them on their newest DVD they are selling. Remember, instructions are good. Recipes are great.
Cutting through the BS
Recipes are just the key points and many times can be explained in simple 6-12 pictures and very little text. Like a cook, the Balloon Artist, Entertainer or Decorator can decipher the code and reproduce the figure on the spot.
Here is a recipe for Suzie Snowflake, a great holiday balloon figure to give a girl.
Ingredients – 260 Balloons, you probably have a bag full of them in a multitude of colors, but you are only going to need white, yellow, and blush. For this figure, I’ll use a 350 blush for the head. I’ve learned a larger balloon makes it easier to draw a face, but feel free to use a 260, if you like drawing on something the size of a hard-boiled egg.
Like all good recipes I will tell you the last ingredient- 1-160 blush balloon for the arms. There you have it, the recipe for Suzie Snowflake, now it is your turn to make it. Be a pal and post your version on my Facebook Fan Page .
