Sailboat balloon hat

Materials: balloons, an air pump and scissors.

Buy balloons on Amazon (paid link): 

https://amzn.to/3ghxhW6

 Buy an air pump on Amazon (paid link): 

https://amzn.to/3mW1DyJ

This instruction was prompted by question from YouTube user crabmeat88 " why don't you teach how to make a boat?". Indeed, why not. I remember as a kid I used to draw sailboats and was dreaming of myself as a seaman. Think that most kids do it too. That's why I choose sailboat as iconic sculpture that represents all boats in general. Sure, we can make sculptures of different boats (ans there are really long list of boats to make though). So, lets start our see  journey with sculpture of a simple sailboat. Inflate two balloons leaving about two-inch flat tails (Pic 1). We are going to work both balloons in the same fashion for the most part of this instruction.

Also, I want to use this sculpture as a hat. Therefore, I am going to twist the first bubbles to make the size of the hat. Otherwise we can make different size bubbles. Twist the first about ten-inch bubble of the first balloon. Tie the nozzle of the second balloon with the free end of the first bubble of the first balloon (Pic 2).

Twist the first bubble of the second balloon of the same size as the first bubble of the first balloon. Lock the nozzle of the first balloon with the free end of the first bubble of the second balloon. We have made the base of the boat and the simple hat (Pic 3).

Twist the second about five-inch bubble. Twist a chain of the next two (the third and the fourth) soft about one-inch bubbles (Pic 4).

Lock all ends of the last two (the third and the fourth) bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 5).

Work the second balloon in the same fashion (Pic 6).

From this point we can make variations of different boats. Once again, in this example we are making simple sailboat. Measure the size of the fifth bubble. The total size of both fifth bubbles should be two or more inches longer than the size of the first bubble (Pic 7).

In this example I twist the fifth about seven-inch bubble. Twist a chain of the next two (the sixth and the seventh) soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 8).

Lock all ends of the sixth and the seventh bubble in one lock twist (Pic 9).

Twist the fifth bubble of the second balloon (Pic 10).

Lock the free end of the fifth bubble of the second balloon between the sixth and seventh bubbles of the first balloon. Cut off the rest part of the first balloon and tie off the end (Pic 11 through 13). Congratulations, we have made the sailboat. Sure, we can use different balloon to make the mast as well. However in this example I rather use the rest part of the second balloon to represent the mast. 

The sailboat is good as long as it has sail. In this example I am going to use one balloon to make small triangular shape sail to place in front of the sailboat. Inflate the third (yellow) balloon leaving about two-inch flat tail (Pic 14).

Twist a chain of the first two (the first and the second) soft about one-inch bubbles (Pic 15).

Lock all ends of the first and the second bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 16).

Twist the sixth about two-inch bubble of the second blue balloon (Pic 17).

Lock the free end of the sixth blue bubble between the first two bubbles of the yellow balloon. Twist the third yellow about eight-inch bubble. Again, we can make different size bubbles for the sail. Twist the fourth soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 18 and 19).

Lock both ends of the fourth bubble in one lock twist (Pic 20).

Measure the size of the fifth yellow bubbles. In this example I make it about sixteen-inch. Twist a chain of the next two (the sixth and the seventh) soft about one-inch bubbles (Pic 21).

Lock all ends of the sixth and the seventh bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 22).

We can cut off the rest of the yellow balloon and tie off the end. Twist the seventh blue about ten-inch bubble to make the mast. Make sure to make the eighth at least one-inch bubble at the very end of the blue balloon (Pic 23).

Lock the free end of the seventh blue bubble between the sixth and the seventh yellow bubbles. Congratulations again, we have made the simple sailboat (Pic 24 through 26). 

We can use it as it is or as a base to make more complicated sculptures. Also, we can decorate it in many different ways. In this example I just added about four-inch bubble with short flat tail at the front of the boat (Pic 27). We can attach small flag to it: thinking of pirate boat :)

And we can use this sculpture as a hat, wearing it in different positions (Pic 28 through 31). Have fun and happy twisting :)

PS: In this post I use exclusively images edited with GIMP - the best free open source image editing software! Yes, I finally manage to move away from Photoshop. My respect and many thanks to all creators, contributors and supporters of GIMP software. Best regards!