I have been traveling to Nepal for over 20 years
My Story & My Goals
What I'm doing in Nepal
I have always dreamed of setting up my own fair trade factory in Nepal. Now my dream is coming true.
Aloha fellow Balloon Artists
my story
I am Ron Fowler / Flower Clown and some of you know me from my early YouTube tutorials or from my Balloon Bags. Well there is much more to my story then just some bags. What I am trying to do with Bagalloon business is help people that are struggling. All my products that I design are made in Nepal and for the most part they are made fair trade, which mean I pay my workers a living wage and not just the lowest wage I can pay. This is really helpful because Nepal is a very poor country and in 2015they had a major Earthquake. Your purchase will do more then just provide you with one of the best designed bags around but you will be helping a Nepal family rebuild their life.
My first trip to Asia was during 96/97 where I spent a year traveling across 8 different countries on 3 continents. During this trip I fell in love with Nepal and ended up staying for 4 months. After starting clown/twisting full time in 2000 I returned to Nepal and on a whim got a new costume made. It was beautiful and not very expensive. The next year I returned to Nepal and had my tailor make a copy of my BIG balloon bag. For the next 15 years I have returned to Nepal for 2 1/2 months almost every year to learn tailoring, designing and built my collection of costumes as well as making bags for local twisters. During this time I built great friendships with my Nepali tailors. In 2006 I did my first export of bags and it was a total disaster. I had so many problems that I almost lost all my bags to customs. Then when I finally got my bags the color choices were lost in translation and finally had to sell them at a big loss just to unload them.
In 2013 I carried back extra bags from Nepal and offered some of my designs to twisters outside my area some. The internet was a big help in this. Then in 2014 I got some encouragement from another bag maker to give it my all and I really focused in on the bags, the business and learning importing. My biggest boost was getting help from other twisters on what they wanted in a perfect balloon bag. That took only 3 years and we now have the perfect setup with the Zuca cart and Aloha Balloon Bag on top.
On April 25, 2015 my wife, daughter and I had been in Nepal for two and a half months. I was spending time designing and putting the final touches on some of my older products. I was getting ready to pack all my goods and bring them home when everything came to a halt. We only 3 days left on this trip to Nepal when we were hit by a 7.8 Earthquake. I stopped the Balloon bag business for a year and the rest of 2015 was spent fund raising and trying to help my friends and the Nepali people rebuild.
In 2016 when things were at a new normal I returned to Nepal to volunteer and start designing/making bags again. My design team came up with new designs and put our tailors back to work on the balloon bags. They were really in need of work and I order as much as I could.
In 2016 my Wife and Mother planned a trip to Disney in Florida for the following January....... Wait, Twist & Shout is in Orlando in January. When I checked the date I found our family vacation ended and 2 days later T&S started. This was just too much of a coincidence and the timing was too good to pass up. I decided to try another shot at exporting and get stock for my first time vending at a balloon convention. If you were there you might have noticed I was a little busy. Sales were good but the best part was talking to everyone about what they liked and wanted out of a balloon bag. I returned to Nepal 2 weeks later with my head filled with this information and the Aloha/Zuca was created.
In 2017 I took another big step and started doing custom orders with custom hand done embroidery on may of the bags and covers. This was done in between all my summer time gigs. I spent a lot of my summer taking orders, helping people designing their custom bags, working with 4 different factories and trying to catch problems before they snowballed in to a disaster. With any new venture there are problems but I had a few but all in all it went very well.
From the bottom of my heart Thank You for all your help and support.
Ron Fowler
my story
I am Ron Fowler / Flower Clown and some of you know me from my early YouTube tutorials or from my Balloon Bags. Well there is much more to my story then just some bags. What I am trying to do with Bagalloon business is help people that are struggling. All my products that I design are made in Nepal and for the most part they are made fair trade, which mean I pay my workers a living wage and not just the lowest wage I can pay. This is really helpful because Nepal is a very poor country and in 2015they had a major Earthquake. Your purchase will do more then just provide you with one of the best designed bags around but you will be helping a Nepal family rebuild their life.
My first trip to Asia was during 96/97 where I spent a year traveling across 8 different countries on 3 continents. During this trip I fell in love with Nepal and ended up staying for 4 months. After starting clown/twisting full time in 2000 I returned to Nepal and on a whim got a new costume made. It was beautiful and not very expensive. The next year I returned to Nepal and had my tailor make a copy of my BIG balloon bag. For the next 15 years I have returned to Nepal for 2 1/2 months almost every year to learn tailoring, designing and built my collection of costumes as well as making bags for local twisters. During this time I built great friendships with my Nepali tailors. In 2006 I did my first export of bags and it was a total disaster. I had so many problems that I almost lost all my bags to customs. Then when I finally got my bags the color choices were lost in translation and finally had to sell them at a big loss just to unload them.
In 2013 I carried back extra bags from Nepal and offered some of my designs to twisters outside my area some. The internet was a big help in this. Then in 2014 I got some encouragement from another bag maker to give it my all and I really focused in on the bags, the business and learning importing. My biggest boost was getting help from other twisters on what they wanted in a perfect balloon bag. That took only 3 years and we now have the perfect setup with the Zuca cart and Aloha Balloon Bag on top.
On April 25, 2015 my wife, daughter and I had been in Nepal for two and a half months. I was spending time designing and putting the final touches on some of my older products. I was getting ready to pack all my goods and bring them home when everything came to a halt. We only 3 days left on this trip to Nepal when we were hit by a 7.8 Earthquake. I stopped the Balloon bag business for a year and the rest of 2015 was spent fund raising and trying to help my friends and the Nepali people rebuild.
In 2016 when things were at a new normal I returned to Nepal to volunteer and start designing/making bags again. My design team came up with new designs and put our tailors back to work on the balloon bags. They were really in need of work and I order as much as I could.
In 2016 my Wife and Mother planned a trip to Disney in Florida for the following January....... Wait, Twist & Shout is in Orlando in January. When I checked the date I found our family vacation ended and 2 days later T&S started. This was just too much of a coincidence and the timing was too good to pass up. I decided to try another shot at exporting and get stock for my first time vending at a balloon convention. If you were there you might have noticed I was a little busy. Sales were good but the best part was talking to everyone about what they liked and wanted out of a balloon bag. I returned to Nepal 2 weeks later with my head filled with this information and the Aloha/Zuca was created.
In 2017 I took another big step and started doing custom orders with custom hand done embroidery on may of the bags and covers. This was done in between all my summer time gigs. I spent a lot of my summer taking orders, helping people designing their custom bags, working with 4 different factories and trying to catch problems before they snowballed in to a disaster. With any new venture there are problems but I had a few but all in all it went very well.
From the bottom of my heart Thank You for all your help and support.
Ron Fowler