My favorite balloons to twist
Reindeer (wearable)
Dec 25th
Reindeer (wearable)
Merry Christmas everyone!
I made these two wearable reindeer balloons for the kids next door. It was so much fun watching them run around the house with these balloons, singing “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.” Boundless energy!
To make this balloon, you’ll need two brown 260s for the head and body, one dark brown 160 for the antlers, and several 260 scraps: white for the eyes, black for the eyeballs, and red for the nose. I made this based on Twister Sister’s tutorial, with a few changes: I used 260 balloons instead of 350 balloons and I also added some ears. You could easily turn this into a hat.
Fruit
Sep 20th
Pear and grapes
I’ve been making many different foods recently. Here are healthier ones. 🙂
The pear balloon is pretty easy – I used a small green 5″ round and pushed some air towards the knot to get the pear shape. The leaves are made with two loop twists with a 160 green scrap, and the stem is a brown balloon scrap with just a little air in it to fill it without expanding the balloon. (At first I expanded the brown balloon, but I thought the proportions look better if you don’t – up to you.)
The grapes balloon is made with a purple 260 and green 160 scrap for the stem and leaves. There are many ways to twist the grapes. I twisted a cluster of 4 one-inch bubbles, then a cluster of 5 one-inch balloons, and twisted those two together. Afterwards, twist a cluster of 3 one-inch bubbles to form the bottom of the grapes, and then twist 2 or 3 more 1-inch bubbles and secure it with the intersection of the first two clusters. It may be a little hard to understand my from my description, but just give it a try and maybe you’ll come up with a new design. 🙂
If you like fruit, check out the strawberries I made before.
Heart eyes emoji
Sep 12th
Smiling face with heart-shaped eyes emoji
I first saw this balloon on youtube (see below), and thought it would be a fun balloon to make, especially for older kids. I hadn’t thought about making emojis before. I added one pinch twist on each side.
My husband didn’t know what this was, but my niece did! 
Corn
Aug 30th
Bag of corn
A friend invited us to a BBQ, so I thought I’d bring some corn. 🙂 As I’ve said before, I love bringing balloon food to events. Kids and adults enjoy them.
To make this balloon, you’ll need three 160 balloons. I used yellow, and also a white and golden rod for different color kernels. You can use other colors for other varieties of corn. Also, you’ll need a white scrap for the eyes and a green 160 balloon for the husk if you’d like. You’ll use a simple weaving pattern. Check out Sergey’s video for instructions. Use a marker if you want to add a face.
Corn
What happens when you squeeze balloon corn? It becomes popcorn…hahaha
Cupcakes
Aug 21st
I was stopping by a brunch at a friend’s place and thought I’d bring cupcakes. I love balloon food. 🙂
Cupcakes
This balloon is quick to make, but requires a more advanced twist tulip twist and a couple pinch twists. You’ll need a 5″ round, a 160 balloon for the frosting, and a ~4″ red scrap for the cherry. I saw these in a video tutorial by Scott Kazan. I have so many blush 5″ rounds, and am glad I found another way to use them!
[ Video tutorial by Scott Kazan ]
Birds
Apr 24th
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.
Birthday bouquet
Apr 7th
Flower bouquet
Happy happy birthday to my wonderful niece! Can’t believe it’s been 5 years already since I made you this princess balloon for your birthday.
For this bouquet, I added a heart and a Hello Kitty balloon. Different shapes are fun, and who doesn’t like Hello Kitty? Using such balloons also saves your fingers from having to twist additional flowers.
A couple of the flowers petals deflated by the next day. (That’s okay – you can’t really tell.) I’ll have to remember to let a little air out of the balloon before tying to help avoid popping/deflation.
Fast panda bear
Apr 2nd
Panda bear (front)
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 ]
Birthday hat
Mar 26th
Balloon hat
This balloon hat was made for a special birthday boy, my super-energetic nephew. (Can’t believe you’re growing up so quickly!)
This hat has the same base as the five-sided birthday cake and this other hat. You can choose different colors and arrange the ends in various ways to create many unique and fun hats. It takes me about 15 minutes now.
One-balloon dinosaur
Mar 20th
T-Rex 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
Mar 14th
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 ]
Flower bouquet
Feb 17th
Flower Bouquet
This flower bouquet was made for my friend’s baby shower. Congratulations Katie on your coming bundle of joy! 🙂
You can make a vase out of balloons, but I often like using a real glass vase. It looks nice and it is sturdy. For the stems, I like to use the wintergreen 160 balloons, which are part of the Qualatex 160 Vibrant Assortment. Of course, any green will work. Many of these flowers I’ve made before, but I did look up a tutorial for the rose. There are many rose videos out there – I used this video by Yonaimy. Lastly, you get to use your flower arranging skills. 🙂
[ Video tutorial by Yonaimy ]
Flower for wall decoration
Feb 15th
Flower with heart petals
To decorate one of the walls at a baby shower, I made three of the these flowers, one red (as shown), along with one pink flower and one white flower. The flower is almost a foot wide after being put together.
To make this balloon: the flower is made of five 6″ heart balloons for the petals, and a yellow balloon for the middle part. I used a part of a yellow 350 balloon (with two pinch twists), but you could also just use a small round yellow balloon (twisted in half). Inflate and tie three of the heart balloons together, and the other two heart balloons together, and then twist the two sets to connect them. Then slide the yellow balloon into place. The balloon will look the same on both sides. I tied a short piece of ribbon to the balloon and taped the other end to the wall.
I will try to put a video together about how to make this balloon. It’s pretty simple!
Baby bootees
Feb 12th
Baby bootees
These baby bootees were hung as a wall decoration for a baby shower.
To make these balloons, I followed Vyacheslav’s video tutorial. (The video is in Russian, but can easily be followed. Check out his other tutorials!) I didn’t have pink small rounds and used two pink large rounds instead. This balloon requires a pretty neat advanced technique to get the shape of the shoes – you’ll inflate a 160 or 260 balloon segment inside of a round balloon and then deflate the round balloon a bit. Very cute!
[ Video tutorial by Vyacheslav]
Year of the monkey
Feb 8th
Happy (Lunar) New Year!
Monkey holding flowers
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.
2015 in review
Jan 18th
Happy 2016!
Though I didn’t post as much in 2015 as in previous years, I was twisting quite a bit!
A quick look back…
-
- Minnie Mouse Cake
-
- Leonardo from TMNT
-
- Balloon riddle
-
- Pretzel
-
- July 4th birthday hat
-
- Yoda
-
- Christmas cake
Christmas cake
Dec 23rd
Christmas cake
Cakes are high on the list of balloons I twist. (Who doesn’t like cake?) Here’s one I made for a Christmas party. I added a red stripe on the sides to make it a little more festive. Merry Christmas!
Yoda
Dec 18th
Yoda
This balloon was made for a co-worker who is retiring. He was my first mentor at my first job out of college, and I have learned so much from him! Congrats Dave!
To make this balloon, I followed a video by Flash the Magician. My husband has some suggestions for changes, so I may try to modify the design some.
Happy July 4th Birthday!
Jul 16th
July 4th birthday hat
A very special happy July 4th birthday to my lovely and talented Aunt Jess! My aunt, uncle, and cousin visited and we got to celebrate in person. We had a great time vacationing in Cape Cod with family and friends.
Designed on the fly, this hat is five-sided and uses five 260 balloons. (You could make it with any number of sides three or greater, but I like five.) It uses a circular weaving pattern, the same one I use to make a birthday cake. I also added a brim with a 160 balloon. Afterwards, I bent the remaining balloon segments so that they curve downward.
July 4th birthday hat
Pretzel
Jun 11th
I came across this pretzel balloon while reviewing some of the fun and super cool creations by Sage the Balloon Sage. It’s an easy balloon to twist and only requires one balloon. Add “salt” with a white paint marker. I always get a kick out of serving balloon foods to guests. 🙂
[ Balloon Sage’s pretzel balloon design video ]