How to Make Balloon Animals

Balloons are an easy eye-catcher when dealing with kids. While a simple balloon may seem common and usual to kids, however, with some little twists and turns can change its shape and can give it a whole new dimension of interest. Making balloon animals is a very easy and interesting way of earning your child's attention as well as appreciation. If you find making balloon animals, the best activity in the list of hobbies, it is necessary to master two twists viz. the basic twist and the lock twist. The basic twist is simply done by holding the balloon in two hands and winding it as is done while wringing clothes. Turning it around at least thrice makes it a good twist and reduces the risk of the twists opening up, which may disfigure the balloon animals. The balloon animals instructions presented through following paragraphs could be useful in pursuing this activity.

How to Make Balloon Animals Step by Step

The most common and fundamental balloon animal is a four legged creature with two ears and a nose. You can turn it into any animal of your choice by adjusting the dimensions. For example, if you keep a long twist for the neck part, your kids would easily recognize it as a giraffe. Here is a guide to make dog/giraffe/dinosaur or whatever you wish to call it. These free balloon twisting instructions should come in handy in the creation of a balloon art for children.

1. Take a 260 (a kind of long streamlined balloon) balloon and inflate it.
2. Make three small twists creating bubble sections of around 2 inches, starting from the knotted end. Let's number the twists as 0 for the knot, 1 for the next twist and so on.
3. Bring twist number 1 and 3 together and wind them together. Such a twist is called a lock twist.
4. This will leave the first bubble as the nose and next two bubbles will stick together as two little ears.
5. From now on the remaining bubble sections will be around 4-5 inches long each. Just like the first lock twist, make another twist by joining twist numbers 4 and 6. This will leave the bubble section adjoining the head as the neck and next two bubbles as forelegs.
6. The remaining part should be divided in 4 equal bubble sections. Repeating the procedure in point no. 4 exactly with twist numbers 7 and 9 leaves you with a body, two hind legs and a tail.
7. The length of nose, neck, body and tail can be adjusted to suit the animal of your choice.

Tips on Balloon Making

Here are some tips to learn to make balloon animals.

• Preferably use a good quality balloon so that it stays intact for a long time and your efforts don't go waste.
• Do not inflate the balloon completely. Leave some space towards the end because the twists take up some space and a fully inflated balloon is sure to burst when twisted.
• Be smart while choosing the color of your balloon. For instance, an elephant should essentially be gray or silver. A green or yellow elephant seldom looks good. It's fun to use bright colors like pink and red to make monkeys and dogs, but to think of it, a brown or white dog, a yellow spotted giraffe, and a brown monkey look much more professional.
• It is a good practice to use a permanent marker to draw eyes, whiskers, paws or a mouth. You can also create spots or stripes in turtles, snakes, zebras, tigers etc. Hope you found the balloon twisting tips and tricks useful for making different forms of balloon art.

For beginners, there are a lot of easy balloon animals to begin with. A sword balloon animal is an ideal one to start with. It can be followed by a hummingbird balloon animal.

You can learn to make balloon animals just for the sake of learning a hobby, or to entertain your children. But you can also give it a serious thought for some arts and crafts project work, to be taught in various summer camps. It could also be used as a fundraiser for charities, a summer job for students, amateur magicians or scout groups.