hi everyone Melanie here from Balloon Artworks in Derbyshire in the UK well today I'm actually not
in Derbyshire I'm on holiday in Wales but I made sure I packed my essentials so I've got my balloon
twisting kit here with my hand pump and a few 260s and five inch rounds and I'm going to film a
little tutorial for you and by the way this little rucksack is really really cute and I find it
really useful for carrying my supplies around when I'm on the move and I don't need too much with me
so I'll leave a link in the description below as to where you can get this balloon animal rucksack
I'm going to be showing you how to make this eight petal daisy flower so it's a lot bigger than your
standard daisy and if you make it in the blue and yellow colour scheme it also works really well
as a forget-me-not and I'm going to be showing you how to finish off the end of your flower
stem with one of these little bubbles with a poodle tail on the end so i've got a really
good technique to um make these poodle tails i struggled with making poodle tails for the longest
time so right at the end i'm going to show you how to make this so be sure you watch to the end
to uh get get that technique okay so let's get started so you're going to need four
260s in colours of your choice i'm using pale pink and today i'm using the Sempertex 260s but
if you've got the Qualatex 260s they're absolutely fine too a really good choice so whichever you
prefer or whichever you've got i'm going to be using one green 260 and i've got this sort of pale
lemon pale yellow and i'm going to be just using the tip of a darker pink so if you've
got a scrap bag delve into your scrap bag and get yourself this is just the tip of one of your 260s
i'm starting with the pink and i've got my hand pump today so i'm going to inflate with about
six strokes of the hand pump and i'm using the Qualatex hand pump which i do recommend because
the thing i like most about the Qualatex hand pump is you get a very consistent amount of air
in into the balloon so if you count the strokes your balloons will inflate to the same size so if
you're doing three strokes three full strokes one two three you'll get the same amount of air into
each balloon we're going to use six strokes of the hand pump so i will also leave a link
to where you can get the Qualatex hand pump i'll leave that link in the description below
okay so grab your main colour and inflate with six strokes of the hand pump
okay just let out a little bit of air just to soften
and then tie if you're using Qualatex balloons you'll probably have a slightly shorter tail
because these Sempertex balloons or Betallatex if you're in the USA
they're a little bit longer than Qualatex so don't worry if your tail here is a little bit shorter
so we're starting with the nozzle end here just bend your balloon over and we're going to make
loops of about six fingers okay so there's my thumb so loops of about six fingers and just twist
okay and then pass that neck and nozzle through that first loop because that's just going to help
make it make sure that first loop doesn't come undone okay give your balloon a little bit of a
squeeze just to soften it and then make another loop to match this one so just bend the balloon
over measure you can measure again with your hand and then twist and before you really commit just
measure against that first loop mine's looking a little bit small so i'm just going to unravel it
and make it just slightly bigger and then twist okay take hold of that knotting nozzle
and just wrap it around that second loop because that's just going to help secure that second loop
okay we're going to make a third loop to match the first two so again soften your balloon just
slightly bend it over and measure okay and put a twist in the end to put just one twist in
and then i look okay i'm a little bit um smaller again so i'm just making it a little bit bigger
and then twisting and then i'm going to wrap that third loop around one of the first two
okay and then bend your balloon over and measure okay and then twist
and just check again happy with that so twist and then just wrap all these loops around one another
and you can just snip off the end here just make a little snip there and oops
don't drop it and then just tie everything just tie a knot okay so you've got this cluster of
four loops and you want to make another one of these so just take your two clusters of
loops and just squish them together okay so just pull one through into the other cluster
now at this point don't worry about trying to
put these in any kind of order we're going to sort that out in just a minute
so i wanted to do a flower video for you because we've seen so many wonderful things on holiday
we're at the seaside the weather's been a bit mixed we've had some very very good days and we've
had some rainy days as well but it's just such uh wales is just such a wonderful place and it's just
nice to be out in nature and enjoying the wildlife and the the flora and the fauna so um
he's my inspiration from this holiday next i'm using my pale yellow or pale lemon
and we don't want to inflate this very much just a couple of strokes we're not going to use
all of it okay tie and then just give your balloon a squeeze just to soften it and then twist off a
small bubble of about two and a half fingers and turn that into a pinch to pinch twist so just
bend your balloon over take hold of that knot and nozzle and just fold it over and then twist okay
and then we want to make another bubble
approximately the same size and then you can bend your balloon over and we're going
to pinch twist this as well so just grasp hold of this bubble pull it upwards and as you do so
twist it around so it sounds a little bit brutal i know but it's a really useful technique to uh
to master so i'll show you that slowly so just pull that up twist it around
okay and you can let go and then we're going to do the same thing with a third bubble so make a
third bubble of approximately the same size bend your balloon over and make a pinch twist
so i'm just going to pull that up and twist it around
okay so we've got four pinch twists
sorry we've got three pinch twists there you go and we're going to do that with another bubble
so this is the fourth bubble just fold your balloon over pull that up and twist it around
okay and then one more bubble
so very approximately the same size bend your balloon over
pull that pinch twist upwards and twist it around okay
and then what we can do is we can break this off or we can cut it off
and then just tie them up okay what i like to do is i just like to
wrap the rest of this 260 around and cinch everything together
okay so now we can start to put these pinch twists in some kind of order okay and if you find that
one's sitting not quite right then just swap it around with another one because you tend to find
that um if you just move it to a different spot it just looks so much better so that's
what you've got next take your green so we're going to make the stem next
and i inflated with six strokes of the hand pump soften the balloon a little bit just by letting
a little bit of air out and then tie okay so we've got a nice long tail here and we're going
to make three more pinch twists just as we did with the yellow balloon so make a small bubble
bend that over taking hold of that muscle nozzle and just twist okay
and then make another small bubble there you go and that over pull it upwards and pinch it
okay so we've got two pinch twists there soften your balloon again just by giving
it a little squeeze and make a third bubble bend your balloon over pull that bubble upwards
and just pinch twist it okay so that's what we've got at the moment
okay so this works really well if you want to make a pore you know that works really well as a pore
for an animal okay we've got a nice long tail here okay so let's start to assemble our flower
so take hold of your cluster of pink loops and you want to locate
the um the end of the balloon the stretchy bit because we're going to use this
to attach the um yellow sensor okay so just start to put these loops in order
if you've got a flat surface it works really well
i haven't at the moment so i'm just going to have to do my best just pull that through
and pull that end into the yellow custard
okay so let's just flatten things out a little bit more so take hold of the engine
and take hold of your stem
pull that 260 into those three pinch twists that's what you've got at the back here
and that's what we've got at the front next you just want the tip of a 260
in a contrasting colour so i've just snipped off
a couple of inches of a pink 260. if you've got a scrap a remnant then that will work perfectly well
so we just want a little puff of air in there so just squeeze it to the end and then
let a little bit of air out so i just want a very small bubble and then tie a knot
so that's just a couple of fingers at most you can pull this bubble into the center of the flower
through to the back and wrap into the pinch twist in this green step and then let's sort everything
out at the front here and just arrange everything so hopefully by now you've got something that
looks like this or even better than mine does i'm sure you've made a great job i promised to
show you how to turn the tip into a little bobble a little poodle tail and i tend to find that when
i'm making bouquets of flowers sometimes the stem is just too long and so i like to finish off with
a little bobble it means you've got a shorter stem and it just finishes off at the end nicely i think
okay so what i do i take hold of the end and the first thing i do is i just snap the
end okay so you're kind of relaxing the latex at the end and then twist a little bubble here okay
and what you're going to do next is wrap your fingers around this part of the balloon just
to prevent this part of the balloon inflating so you're not holding on really tightly you're just
holding it lightly and at the same time as you do that you're going to press
down onto this balloon here and see what happens okay
and there you get a poodle tail
and i find since i've been doing my poodle tails this way i don't have a problem as i said i had
problems making poodle tails the standard way for so long until i came up with this technique
and i find now that it works for me every time so there you've got your lovely daisy flower
or if you prefer forget me not so be sure to like the video and remember to subscribe
and if you're wanting more tutorials i'll leave links in the description below
to where you can find some of my premium training videos as well as other tutorials and if you've
enjoyed this tutorial i've got lots more flower tutorials so be sure to watch this video next