Signature: Stephanie ‘Ruby’ Morace

Age: 34
Occupation: Balloon engineer, owner of Balloonatics of Baton Rouge
Hometown: Fishville, Louisiana

Stephanie Morace often travels with 25,000 balloons and a pump in her car.

The owner of Balloonatics of Baton Rouge, Morace began her journey to becoming a balloon engineer three years ago, when her church needed someone to help with kids’ activities. She knew how to twist a balloon into the shape of a dog, so she volunteered.

“I made really basic stuff. Dogs and snakes, things like that. It became a hobby for a while until people started asking me to do birthday parties,” says Morace, who graduated from LSU in 2005 with a degree in biological engineering. “Then I went to a couple of conventions, and I thought, this is really fun and something that I love to do.”

Her hobby is now a full-time business. She hangs out with a local crew of balloon twisters, face painters and clowns, known as her “Clown Posse.”  Morace calls herself “Ruby” (her clown name) when a client asks her to dress as a clown to twist balloons. It’s a nontraditional career, but one she cherishes.

“I always wanted to be successful,” Morace says. “And I thought that was having the big house and fancy car and six-figure salary. But success for me is going to work and loving what you do.”

Morace still works part-time in the engineering world and says that background helps her create her award-winning, large-scale balloon designs, including a giant Shih Tzu dog, The Peanuts Movie characters and a Louisiana swamp scene—complete with pelicans and magnolias—that measured 15 square feet.

“That one was big,” she says. “We were up 42 straight hours, and I couldn’t feel my fingertips the next day.”

She twists balloons at birthday parties and corporate events in the greater Baton Rouge area as well as in New Orleans and Lafayette. She also spends a few nights each week twisting balloons at local restaurants, including DeAngelo’s in Denham Springs and Prairieville, Cou-Yons in Port Allen and Guidry’s Restaurant in Plaquemine.

Morace lives in Port Allen, and during the floods, her family was stuck in Denham Springs. Unable to get to them, she felt helpless.

So she used her talent to make kids smile instead. That week, she worked her regular night at DeAngelo’s in Prairieville. When two boys came in, she made them Ghostbusters proton packs from balloons, complete with glowing ghosts and a spray of psychomagnotheric slime.

“For a second I forgot about everything else,” she says. “It was an escape for them, but it was for me too.”

She says kids normally request life-size Disney princesses, Pokémon characters, flame-throwers and video-game controllers. She is a perfectionist with her creations.

“It’s easy to make a one-balloon dog,” she says. “But when you make their dog—like you reach into their brain and put that image of their actual dog into a balloon—their brain explodes. It’s awesome.”

This story was originally published in the October issue of 225 Magazine.