Man and monkey

(Wednesday) Yesterday, even though I didn't post, I did learn a new design. It's a basic man shape. Very simple and uses two balloons. I didn't really like how the original design worked, so I modified it. Originally, two balloons of the same color would be used and everything would be done symmetrically so that one balloon was for the right side, and the other was for the left. What if the guy wanted red pants and a yellow shirt? So I modified the design to have the legs be done in one color, and the top be done in another color. It took some time to learn how to get things done evenly, working from one end to the other.

(Thursday) This morning we got up, saw the big pile of practice balloons in the corner, and since tomorrow is garbage day, we decided to pop all the old balloons that we didn't like or had deflated themselves out of shape. The boys had a blast (no pun intended).

Today I learned a few things. I learned how to make the dog in about 15 seconds. I learned how to make a dinosaur, but still have to work out how much air to put in, and how to twist it so that everything is even. Then I learned how to make the monkey in a palm tree. So now I need to go back to practicing my dinosaur. Here are the monkey and the dino anyway...

Teddy Bears and YouTube

So today we went to McDonald's again to practice making balloons and let the children bounce off some energy. I made about 6 flowers, and decided I needed to learn something while I was there. I checked out YouTube on my phone and looked up teddy bears. After about three bears, I made this little fella in 3 minutes 16 seconds.

Hats and crowns

I feel like I am very slow. I have just spent the last two hours twisting two or three hats. Two of them were somewhat complex, but they sure took a while! Steve suggested I be creative and come up with something that can be my own. Sort of like a trademark or something. Anyway, here are the fruits of my labors. I like the purple crown the best. It's the one that took the longest, and I did pop one balloon that kind of messed up the design, but since it is a little intricate, you might not notice.

There are Micah, Noah and Josiah in their hats. Noah liked the hat from yesterday so much he wanted to model it again today. After the picture, Josiah put on the "carousel" hat on over his head. It's so big, like on Micah, that he thinks he's a space man when he wears it.

Micah tried on the orange and blue (gator) crown.

Sunny Sunday

(Sunday) Today was a nice day. After church, I got home, made lunch, cleaned up, etc. Then balloon time came. I really hadn't planned on doing a new design because I only wanted to do five a week, and I had already done 6. Well, I watched Joe Montello's video. I tried doing the diamond ring. It was out of my league. I didn't know how much air to put into the balloon, and couldn't figure it out. I saw the video on the lady bug. Boy it was cute. Well, here are pictures of some of the balloons I made today.

This is Noah with the Jester had I made. He is holding a flower, and there is a tiny orange ladybug in his hat.

Josiah shows off his black beetle.

Micah's turtle is so cute.

The Video Posted

I don't know which video posted first - facebook or YouTube, but I like using Youtube better, so here's the link. Remember, it is time elapsed. The video is about three minutes, but it really took me four minutes to make the butterfly.

A balloon a day, continued...

(Saturday) Today I learned how to make a balloon butterfly. I actually videotaped myself making the fourth one. It was painstaking to watch. First of all, it was so slow. It took me about four minutes. Then, I kept making all these twists to fix things up, even though I wasn't finished with it. And then, the antennae. Well, it reminded me of learning to play the guitar. I would have sore fingers at the end of the session because I pressed so hard on the strings, but eventually, the fingers built up calluses to protect themselves. I kept squeezing and squeezing those antennae, and finally, the bubble came up on the end of one. Then I had to do the other one. I ended up pushing the balloon up against my leg. (Not very artistic or pretty.) I did learn that sticking out my tongue to show great effort is not so good. Anyway, I'm waiting for the video to post either on Facebook or YouTube. Whichever one comes first gets on the blog tomorrow. In any case, here's a screen clip of the finished balloon.

Besides the butterfly, I took the boys to the playground. I meant to take them to the outdoor playground, but by the time I got there, it was closed. So we went to McDonald's playground. The boys ate their fries, and I started twisting. I started making a sword for the only other kid in the playground. Then I started making flowers for my kids, and then others started showing up. In the hour and 15 minutes that I was there, I made 4 swords, 3 flowers, one dog, two mice, and a butterfly. That's eleven balloons in an hour. And they were relatively simple ones. I popped two balloons. But at least I got to practice and give them out. My balloon corner in the house is getting pretty full.

My first week

I placed a call to a balloon professional from San Diego (Sandi from Balloon Utopia), who gave me a few pointers about what I need to do to get started in the balloon twisting profession. She was very positive, and told me to make goals and practice. I made the goal to learn one new design a day.

Monday,(March 21) the balloons came in. YouTube became my friend. I looked up simple things like, how to tie a balloon, and how to make a dog, a sword, etc. My first balloon was a weird looking dog.

Tuesday, I added a sword to my repertoire. I didn't like most of the balloons they were teaching that had regular handles. I like the one with the bubbly handle, so I found a tutorial from Italy. Fortunately, it's not that important to understand everything they say, as long as you see what's going on. Here are the kids with their swords.


Wednesday, I worked on flowers. I found a video teaching how to make a rose. This was a little harder than a normal flower, but still functional. I made several, which looked nice as a bouquet. I also reviewed the dog and timed myself doing it. It took a minute and 15 seconds. The world record for making 100 balloon dogs in the least amount of time is 5:48 (that's minutes and seconds). Yes the balloons were pre-inflated. So was mine when I timed it. I have a LOT of work to do.

Thursday, I worked on a business card and got myself a domain name. although I haven't built the website yet, the web address is going to be www.sunnyballoons.com. I like the name. After all, I am in Sunny Florida, right? My new project for the day was a mouse. I also worked on and made a snake but that required mouth blowing. My neck is still sore from all the blowing that I was trying to do. Whatever will I do when I have to make curly cues?

Friday was a bit of a clean-up day. The boys helped me put all the balloons that were scattered all over the floor from the week into a corner, and I was able to vacuum the floor. Once the floor was vacuumed, Josiah and Noah decided they needed to help me pump balloons. Here they are:


I had planned to take them to the playground and do some practicing there, but time was not on our side, and that plan fell through. I used the Mario balloon that the boys had gotten from a balloon guy in Chili's and figured out how to make a Luigi. It took me over an hour, but here is what he looked like. It was not on the list of things to learn this week, but I did it any way.


And that's it for this week. I planned on blogging each day, but the delay was in starting the blog. I have one now, though, so I can now continue with my daily progress (possibly skipping weekends, or using weekends to review). I hope you enjoy following my progress, and in future posts, I hope to be very informative and educational.