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ah
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Start with your nozzle end and inflate it.
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As you would for a dog balloon animal,
something to keep in mind when twisting
balloon animals, a lot of times I see people
wrestling with the balloons
trying to twist a balloon animal.
But the easiest way is to actually pinch
and then twist.
Whether you do this with your left hand or
your right hand, it is always
easier to pinch
and then twist. We're going to make
what's called a basic balloon twist. So we're
going to make this about three inches
long. At this point, you're going to
pinch right here,
and then twist.
Now something that you have to realize is
if I let go of my left hand right now,
See? Ot comes undone. So the key is that
you pinch, you twist.
Now watch my left hand.
It reaches over, creeps over, and it grabs.
This way, this first basic balloon twist doesn't
come undone.
Now you're going to have to make another
basic balloon twist,
a smaller one right about here of about
an inch.
So with my right hand I'm going to pinch
and twist the balloon.
Remember to bring your left hand over
and grab. Now
pinch again. We're going to make another
one that matches this one.
So pinch and twist.
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You should have something that looks like
this. Notice at this point that I can
hold here
and hold here and it doesn't come undone.
Fold it in half and then take
your left hand and grab both of these
two sections.
Now we're going to make what's called a
balloon lock twist.
You're going to take your right hand and
you're going to twist it just like this,
just as you would on a peanut butter jar
lid. So grab and twist,
and you've made the head of your balloon giraffe. Now we're going
to make a rather
short head or first basic balloon twist here.
Maybe
two inches.
The next two are basic balloon twists that
you would make for ears
are going to be very small, about an inch.
Now watch my hand move over, hold
and twist to match.
Fold as you normally would and now twist
for your
balloon lock twist.
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Here's a head for your giraffe. Of course, the next
basic balloon twist will form the neck and it's
a
long neck. So you can make it as long as
you like. I'm going over a foot here.
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Now we're going to make front legs
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and giraffes have long legs. So we're
going to
be very generous here, about eight inches.
Now something I like to do is make a
small body
and then with the back legs, make them
slightly shorter
than the legs here, as a giraffe would. So
you get kind of that
angled body. So let me show you how to do
that.
Maybe about three inches for the body.
Now for the legs. just a tad
shorter here than the ones in the front.
And there you have a giraffe balloon animal. Of course,
what really makes a giraffe is if you
add the markings. So first of all, for balloons, I
use
an erasable marker. Somebody told me early
on to use erasable markers because
they don't tend to pop the balloon animals. I
don't know if that's true but I have
certainly used a sharpie marker on
balloon animals.
But I like markers with blunt tips as opposed to
using something with a
very fine point. So just keep in mind you
can experiment but I've always used the
erasable markers with the blunt tips
that allow me to get a generous kind of
marking
on the balloon animal. And it
adheres quite well. Another thing you'll
notice is that I didn't actually
fill in the markings. I think that all
you have to do
is make the shapes on the giraffe balloon animal
and kids will love it. If you have time
you
can fill these in but I learned early on
that I didn't want to have to fill them
in
during a production line when you've got a
whole bunch of people waiting. All you
have to do is
create the outlines on your giraffe and
people are quite happy.
And only do that if you have the time.
Otherwise, just hand out the giraffe balloon animal
with its long neck without the markings
and I think your audience
will be very happy.
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