Making a Balloon Monkey

Video Transcript

"Now when children have been to the zoo, they first want to tell you about all the animals they've been to see. I say, did you like the elephants? The giraffes? Mm-mm. They always love the monkeys. So I'm adding a little monkey to our collection today. We're going to start by making his little nose. And we're going to soften the balloon. When I say soften, that means we push the air down, squeeze it a bit so it becomes nice and supple. Because these ear twists are quite tight on this balloon otherwise and it's liable to pop. So then to, do another bubble for his ear, then comes the top of the monkey's head. I'm going to knot-twist the ears and the top of the monkey's head together. Now, here comes the ear twist. You grab it and twist it. Grab it and twist it three times. You've got the shape of an ear. This is the other ear, right here. As you can see, it's quite tightly packed into the head piece and that's why we softened the balloon. We're going to pull it out and twist, one, two, three. Now, monkeys have squashed, flat little noses. So this is the clever part. You're going to take the knot and wrap it around the back of the monkey's ear like that. Straighten his nose up, like changes his whole face. Looks much more like a monkey now. Next, I'm going to stretch the balloon because we want the monkey's tail to have a little bit of length, nice curly long tail coming down, pinch twisting the end of his body. Make a pinch twist for the bottom of the leg, and another leg, lock twist the legs together. Now, for the monkey's tail I'm going to roll the balloon. Going to roll it down like this, and again, and squeeze. Going to do the monkey's neck next; put his legs on, pinch and twist, mirror the legs. Lock them together. Stretch the balloon. There we are. And pinch and twist the second legs, mirror up. They're the same size that way. Pinch and twist the bottom of the legs, straighten them up. Now, to make a nice tail we're going to roll the balloon down. Roll it, squeeze. Coming down, pinch twisting the end of his body, make a pinch twist for the bottom of the leg, and another leg. Lock twists the legs together. Now for the monkey's tail, we're going to roll the balloon. We're going to roll it down like this, and again, and squeeze. Okay, and let it go. That gives a nice curly effect to the monkey's body. We're going to finish off with a little, little facial markings. These don't have to be too fantastic, just give a little bit of personality to your animal. Little nostrils, you see that? And one there. Nice big smile. He really is a very mischievous little monkey."