Animals – Page 2 – Khool Balloons

Birds

Here’s my try at a simple one balloon bird. The bird design by Twistina is super cute, but I wanted a simpler bird.

The large bird to the right in the picture above is made with a single 260 balloon. You won’t need the entire balloon, and I wrapped a portion of the uninflated balloon around the body to hide it, before finishing off the balloon with the tail.

The two birds on the left are made with 160 balloons. As shown, you can easily add a different color for the beak and/or feet, if you are not in a rush. Using just a yellow/orange bubble for the beak will add a lot.

Fast panda bear

I really like this panda bear design. It’s another fun and fast one, and you can use this design for other animals too. I followed this tutorial from jlomagic of Lacey, WA. You can even buy white round balloons with the face already printed to save you more time.

To make this balloon, you’ll need a round white and a black 160 or 260. The one thing I do differently is I twist the tail out of the round white balloon (because a panda’s tail is actually white.) If you use the plain white rounds, you’ll need a black marker to draw the face. For the black balloon, I happened to have some Qualatex Pearl Onyx Black 160s, which I like better than the regular Onyx Black.

I gave a couple of these balloons to a two and a three year old. The balloons survived quite a bit of squeezing and pulling!

BTW, La’s Rocks is a popular balloon shop – I’ve heard great things about them. They offer free shipping if you order more than $150. They have a lot of variety – I may order from them next time.

[ Video tutorial from jlomagic ]

One-balloon dinosaur

This one-balloon dinosaur (T-Rex) by Rob Driscoll is another fun and fast balloon. You’ll need a black marker to give the dinosaur sharp, scary teeth and eyes.

Check out Rob’s blog – he’s quite a talented balloon artist and photographer, and has been doing a creative series of “Twisted Cinema” balloon posts.

[ Rob Driscoll’s free tutorials ]

Two-balloon horse

This two-balloon horse is a fun and fast one! You can use different colors instead of the usual black/brown/white; “My Little Pony” fans will love them. It can also stand on its own.

Recently, I’ve been looking for more balloon designs that can be made quickly. I twisted for a classroom of kids last week, and whenever you have a large group of kids (and limited time), you’ll usually need to stick to designs that only require one or two balloons. My next few posts will be on simple balloons.

To make this balloon, I followed this tutorial video by Michael Floyd. If all you can make is the basic balloon dog, this one is not much harder. You’ll just need to learn how to make pinch twists, which you’ll see in the video. I like Michael’s explanation of how to make the poodle tail. It may take a little time to figure out the poodle tail, but if you can’t get it, you can just slowly push the air to the other side of the balloon.

[ Video tutorial by Michael Floyd ]

Year of the monkey

Happy (Lunar) New Year!

2016 is the year of the monkey according to the Chinese zodiac. I twisted the above monkey for a baby shower this past weekend (more photos to come!)

This was the first time I used a geo blossom balloon as a base. I’ve read how other balloon artists have partially filled the geo blossom with water or other weights to keep the balloon upright. I didn’t fill the balloon with anything but air, and used Scotch tape on the bottom of the geo blossom, which worked well for me.

Leonardo from TMNT

Happy Birthday to my super energetic and fun nephew! His favorite Ninja Turtle is Leonardo, the leader of the team!

I’ve made Donatello before, following instructions from balloonmodels.com. This time, I figured out a different design.

To make this balloon, I used a green 350 for the head (with the same design as before), a brown and a goldenrod 260s for the shell, green 160s for the arms, a green 350 for the legs, two gray 160s for the swords, and brown 160s for the arm bands and leg bands. I had meant to take a picture of the new design of the shell, but forgot! I finished the balloon by using a a white paint marker and black marker for the face.

Bird (using a Geo Blossom)

This bird design by Brian Walendziak is super cute! I’ve been trying to figure out other ways to use geo blossom balloons. This design uses a geo blossom balloon turned inside out.

I made a couple small changes – the back of the balloon is all purple. Instead of twisting a cluster of four white bubbles, I used a purple 260 for two bubbles and a white 260 for two bubbles (Brian suggests using four white bubbles to save time.) You also don’t need to twist a bubble to attach the beak. You can just wrap the knot around the balloon where you want to attach it. If you do twist a cluster of four white bubbles, you could make the bird have a face on both sides.

[ Brian Walendziak’s Geobird ]

Tortoise

Here’s a couple tortoises I made by following a video from Rob Driscoll of mydailyballoon.com. The video is quite easy-to-follow! Check out mydailyballoon.com, which has a ton of excellent balloons.

The larger tortoise is made using 260 balloons (as seen in the video); the smaller one I made using 160 balloons. The smaller one has five bubbles for the shell instead of four.

BTW, do you know the differences between a tortoise and a turtle?

[ Rob Driscoll’s tortoise tutorial video ]

Doggie

My niece wanted a (real) dog, and so I made this balloon dog for her birthday. (But she still wants a real dog!)

This balloon is based on a design found here: Gabby’s crazy balloons step by step. She has a nice picture-by-picture tutorial. Check it out!

The design uses two heart balloons twisted together. I haven’t used hearts in this way before – I’ll have to see what else I can use them for!

[ Gabby’s crazy balloons step by step ]

Beaver – nature’s engineer

This past weekend, some friends and I went to watch the MIT men’s basketball game. It was a pretty exciting game – the first half was close, with MIT eventually pulling away from Rhode Island College. Go Engineers!

We brought some kids to the game and I made this beaver (MIT’s mascot) beforehand for them. It is made from two 160 brown balloons (actually one plus a small scrap), and a few scraps for the teeth, eyes, and nose. The head is similar to Mr. Penguin‘s head, except with an additional couple of pinch twists in the front and in the back. The rest of the body is made similarly to this cow‘s body, with the addition of a beaver tail and extra bubbles for the back.

One of these days I’ll make TIM the beaver.

Fishies

I’ve made many fish before. Now I’ve designed a simpler fish for some friends who are going on a mission trip and are interested in some balloon twisting. This design uses one 260 balloon and one small 5″ round balloon. It’s pretty fast and only requires 2-3 twists.

To get started, inflate the round balloon and the 260 balloon, leaving about 1″ uninflated. Next, tie the ends of the balloon together. Squeeze the 260 balloon to spread the air to inflate the rest of the balloon. Fold the 260 balloon in half. You can probably figure out the rest :).

If you’d like to add more detail/color, you can use another small round balloon twisted in half to add eyeballs.

You can also add lips to the fish by doing two pinch twists.

Or, add both eyeballs and lips! Note: if you are adding lips, remember to leave an extra 1/2 inch of the balloon uninflated so that the balloon has room to expand for the two additional pinch twists.

Love Puppy

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, this balloon is a great one to twist. This balloon is from ChiTwister’s YouTube video.

This balloon is pretty fast and easy to make. The twists are pretty simple. The most difficult part may be doing pinch twists if you have trouble with those.

[ ChiTwister’s YouTube video ]

Chimpanzee

This chimpanzee is based on Mr. Boma’s chimpanzee balloon. The video is great and very easy to follow.

To make this balloon, you’ll need two brown balloons (with ~5 inch tail) for the body/arms/legs, one blush for the face/ears/chest, and optionally a white scrap balloon for the eyes. (I was going to make a black and gray gorilla based on this design, but didn’t get to it.) You can easily make this a monkey by adding a tail.

In addition, I used a brown 160 balloon to give this chimpanzee a back, as you can see in the picture below. I tied the end of balloon used for the back to the eyes to help keep it in place.

This balloon will easily stand on its own, which is pretty cool.

[ Mr. Boma’s Chimpanzee video ]

Cat

I don’t really like cats – they’re sneaky and always seem like they want to torment me. Sigh. (Maybe one day I’ll be more comfortable with them…)

But I came across a couple videos on making a cat balloon, and decided I’d make one too. This cat is a combination of some different things I’ve seen, and I tweaked the face a little to get it the way I wanted it to look.

To make this balloon: I used a black 260 balloon (with ~5 inch tail) for the body, a white 260 to make the face and paws, and a red scrap balloon for the nose. First, make the paws, which is essentially 4 pinch twists. Then make the body, inserting the paws when you twist the legs. Lastly, make the face and attach it to the body.

To take this photo, I put a piece of tape on the paws to help it stand. (If you look closely, you’ll see the tape.)

[ Gilberto’s cat video | papaballoon’s cat video]

Hamster

Here’s a cute little hamster I saw on Holly Hopper’s youtube channel. Here’s the video link.

To make this balloon you’ll need four balloons – one white 260 balloon and two brown 260 balloons for the body, a small white round for the eyes, and a pink scrap for the nose.

A friend mistook this balloon for a chipmunk, and you could probably easily make some changes to the basic structure and twist a chipmunk instead. Next time I make this hamster, I’ll have to try adding some small ears so that it looks more like a hamster.

[ Holly Hopper’s hamster tutorial video ]

Panda bear

I saw this panda bear balloon while browsing YouTube one day. People have asked me to make a panda bear before, so here’s one version! (I’ll try making my own version sometime.)

This panda bear YouTube video is in Spanish, but you should be able to follow along with the video even if you don’t know Spanish! The balloon artist in the video made a whole set for the panda bear, with bamboo and everything!

To make this balloon, you’ll need one white 260 balloon and one black 260 balloon. This panda bear is somewhat similar to other basic teddy bear designs, but slightly more complicated as you are twisting a black and a white balloon together at the same time. It’s neat how for some parts of the balloon, the color on the back is different from the color on the front. You’ll have plenty leftover of both balloons, so you won’t have to worry about balloon management too much.

[ Yonaimy’s panda bear video ]

Cow

I made this balloon for a little boy who LOVES cows.

To make this cow, you’ll need 4 balloons – two white 260s, one black 260, and one 6″ heart balloon. Then add the eyes, spots, and other details with a black marker. I followed this youtube video by Holly Hopper. This cow design uses basic twists (nothing tricky), and looks great. You can easily add horns too (as shown in the video.)

[ Holly Hopper’s youtube video to make a cow ]

One-balloon monkey

This monkey is a great one to add to your arsenal – it only requires one balloon and is a fast one to make (and cute!) I’ve blogged about another monkey I’ve made before, but that one requires multiple balloons and is a little more complicated. If you have a lot of kids to twist for, you’ll want to make one can be made quickly.

I first saw this one-balloon monkey on Michael Floyd’s web site, where he has posted a very nice video on how to make the balloon. Check it out!

Here’s a monkey I made out of a 160 balloon. To make this balloon, I inflated the balloon a little more than halfway.

Because the balloon is thinner and the monkey is smaller, there was plenty of balloon to give the monkey a three-balloon body, some small feet, and a long tail.

[ Michael Floyd’s instructions for a monkey ]

Happy Penguin Awareness Day!

Happy National Penguin Awareness Day!

Quick quiz:
Are penguins birds or mammals?
Penguins live only in cold temperatures: True or False?
Penguins can travel as fast as 15mph: True or False?

More penguins

More penguins! I like penguins, and I also have a plethora of black balloons, so I made more penguins. 🙂

To make this balloon, you’ll need one black 260, one orange 160, and one scrap white 260. This penguin balloon is a slightly modified version of the birds I made before (based on Twistina’s design). You can inflate the black balloon leaving about 3 inches uninflated. You’ll make one less bubble for the body, and will add the white balloon in the front. For the penguin on the right, I also added an extra twist where I attached the beak.

Don’t be surprised if you see more penguin balloons in a future post!