Instructions to Make an Animal From 3 Balloons
Balloon animals are popular at fairs, carnivals and circuses. Children flock to clowns to have them magically create an animal out of a piece of plastic.
Although these instructions are for a fish, a variety of animal shapes may be created with balloons: dog, giraffe, elephant, mouse, moose, turtle, poodle, rabbit and horse. Use imagination to create additional variations. Animal balloons are very similar, and it takes just a quick twist here or a pinch there to make a completely different animal.
Creating animal shapes requires tube balloons, which are found in hobby shops. These longer balloons are easy to twist and bend. The difficulty is inflating tube balloons---you need an air pump, not your lungs.
Instructions
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Make a Balloon Fish
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1
Inflate three tube balloons (yellow, blue and red for demonstration purposes) half way, leaving the other halves uninflated. Leaving a portion of each tube balloon uninflated enables it to act as a buffer when the balloon is twisted into several sections.
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2
Twist the middle of the yellow balloon several times to form two long sections. Then hold of the center of one section, and twist again to make a one-inch bubble. Make another one-inch bubble by repeating this step. The result is that you have two one-inch bubbles in the center of your tube balloon.
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3
Make one one-inch bubbles at the very tip of each end of the yellow balloon. Take these two bubble ends, put them together and twist. You have just finished a simple outline of the fish, including the front and rear ends.
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4
Pick which end you would like to be the fish's front or rear. Twist the very end nozzle of a blue tube balloon around the very front end of the fish body you just created. Take the opposite end of the blue balloon and twist it around the same end as you just completed in this step. Take the unattached part of the blue balloon and create a one-inch bubble by bringing the two sections together and twisting them. Wrap this bubble around the yellow balloon end. The result is the yellow and blue balloons' producing a more elaborate outline of the fish--you have four halves creating the outline, not just two.
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5
Create a loop in the blue balloon by grabbing one section with each of your hands and twisting it. Repeat this step on the other side to create fish fins.
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6
Pinch and twist the front portion of the yellow balloon (about a third of the way) to create a head.
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7
Grab the front end of the red tube balloon. Create a one-inch bubble using the pinch-twist method you've used in previous steps. Grab more of the red balloon and, right next to the first bubble you created, twist another one. You now have two bubbles next to each other that serve as the fish's eyes.
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8
Wrap the bubbles of the red balloon around the yellow balloon. Bring the front end of this red balloon toward the rear. Wrap the nozzle around the bubbles. What you will have is the red balloon attached at the head and the rear of the fish.
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9
Decorate the nearly finished balloon fish. Use a marker to scribble a few markings. Create patterns, or, perhaps, details on the face, such as eyelashes and a wide grin.
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10
Practice animal balloon making to hone your craft. Balloon artists practice their art over and over until they achieve perfection.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit colourful air balloons image by Igor Zhorov from Fotolia.com
