Friday, February 22, 2013

Balloon lightsaber. Balloon samurai sword. Balloon sword. Balloon saber. Balloon dagger. How to attach balloon sculptures to a stick


Materials: balloons, scissors and air pump.

Buy balloons on Amazon (paid link): 
 Buy an air pump on Amazon (paid link): 

 Today we are going to make a couple of swords. Let's start with basic one balloon samurai sword. Inflate a balloon leaving about two-inch flat tail (Pic 1).

Twist the first about seven-inch bubble. It will represent the handle. Twist the second soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 2).

Lock both ends of the second bubble in one lock twist (Pic 3).

Twist the third soft about one-inch bubble. Twist the fourth about eight-inch bubble (Pic 4).

Lock both ends of the fourth bubble in one lock twist (Pic 5).

Force the second bubble through the loop of the fourth bubble. The second bubble should protrude about one inch above the fourth bubble (Pic 6 and 7).


Twist the fifth about one-inch bubble. Twist the sixth about eight-inch bubble. The sixth bubble should be the same size as the fourth bubble (Pic 8).

Lock both ends of the sixth bubble in one lock twist (Pic 9).

Hold the sixth bubble to prevent it from untwisting. Twist the seventh soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 10).

Lock the free end of the seventh bubble with the second bubble (Pic 11). The rest of the balloon is the eighth bubble. It represents the blade of the sword.

Force the eighth bubble all the way through the loop of the sixth bubble (Pic 12).

Fix the second bubble inside of the loop of the fourth bubble. Pull the fourth and the sixth bubble as close to each other as possible. Congratulations, you have made the samurai sword (Pic 13 through 16).




We can make many variations of this sword. In the following example I am going to use two balloons to make a lightsaber. This time I want to make the handle working the bubble in reverse order. Working in the reverse order the handle bubble is going to be the last one. Inflate a white balloon leaving about four-inch flat tail (Pic 17).

This time, I use only part of the balloon to make the handle. And I use the second balloon to make the blade bubble. Let's measure approximately the size of the white balloon to make the handle (Pic 18). 

Cut off the part of the balloon with the nuzzle. Tie off the end (Pic 19).

Twist the first about eight-inch bubble (Pic 20).

Lock both ends of the first bubble in one lock twist. Twist the second about one-inch bubble. Twist the third about eight-inch bubble (Pic 21).

Lock both ends of the third bubble in one lock twist (Pic 22).

Twist the fourth about one-inch bubble. Twist the fifth soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 23).

Lock both ends of the fifth bubble in one lock twist. The rest of the balloon is the sixth bubble. It is the handle bubble (Pic 24).

We can force the fifth bubble either through the loop of the first or through the loop of the third bubble. In this example I force the fifth bubble through the loop of the first bubble (Pic 25). We have made the handle.

Fully inflate red balloon. Cut off the nozzle part of the red balloon leaving as long blade bubble as you like (Pic 26).

Force the knot of the red balloon through the third white bubble (Pic 27).

Tie the knot of the red balloon with the fifth white bubble (Pic 28).

Force the fifth white bubble in the loop of the first white bubble (Pic 29).

Fix the first and the third white bubbles close to each other. Congratulations, you have made the lightsaber (Pic 30 through 32). It looks the same as the one balloon samurai sword.



As I mentioned before, we can make variations of the handle. In the following example I am going to add one more bubble to the handle. Once again, prepare the white balloon to make the handle twisting the bubbles in reverse order. Twist the first about eight-inch bubble. Lock both ends of the first bubble in one lock twist (Pic 33).

Twist the second soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 34).

Lock both ends of the second bubble in one lock twist (Pic 35). The second bubble represents the power button. Yeah, the lightsaber has to be powered up  to use it as a weapon!

Work the rest of the handle in the same fashion as described previously (Pic 36 through 44).









Congratulations again, you have made the lightsaber with the power button (Pic 45 through 47).



Let's take a closer look on all three swords that we have made so far (Pic 48 and 49). As, you can see we use the same simple handle with little variations in all sculptures.


In the following example I want to use entire balloon to make another variation of simple handle. Inflate balloon leaving about three-inch flat tail (Pic 50).

Twist the first about eight-inch bubble (Pic 51).

Lock both ends of the first bubble in one lock twist. Twist the second soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 52).

Lock both ends of the second bubble in one lock twist. Twist the third soft about one-inch bubble. Twist the fourth about eight-inch bubble (Pic 53).

Lock  both ends of the fourth bubble in one lock twist (Pic 54).

Twist the fifth soft about one-inch bubble. Twist the sixth soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 55).

Lock both ends of the sixth bubble in one lock twist. Let's assume for a moment that the rest of the balloon is the seventh bubble. It is the handle bubble. So, as you may see we have just made the simple handle (Pic 56).

OK. Let's fix it properly. Force the sixth bubble through the loop of the fourth bubble (Pic 57).

In this example I use a part of yellow balloon to make the blade bubble. Force the knot of the yellow balloon through the loop of the first purple bubble (Pic 58).

Tie the knot of yellow balloon with the sixth purple bubble. Force the sixth purple bubble inside of the loop of the fourth purple bubble (Pic 59).

Fix all  bubbles in proper positions (Pic 60). 

The seventh bubble is too long. We can use it to make many variations of the handle. Let's twist the seventh about seven-inch bubble. Twist the eighth soft about one-inch bubble (Pic 61).

Lock both ends of the eighth bubble in one lock twist (Pic 62).

We can split the rest of the balloon on number small bubbles to decorate the handle. In this example, I am going to make it very simple. Just twist the tenth about one-inch bubble at the very end of the purple balloon (Pic 63). We can attach the tenth bubble between the third and the fourth purple bubbles. Or attach it to the second purple bubble.

Let's lock the free end of the tenth bubble with the second bubble (Pic 64).

Bend the blade bubble to shape it as you like. Congratulations again, we have made the sword (Pic 65).

And here is a closer view on all four swords that we have made (Pic 66 and 67).


I have promised to one of my YouTube friends to show how I attach small balloon animals to a plastic stick. For this example I am going to use sculpture of one balloon poodle (Pic 68 and 69). 


First of all I want to remind you that we can use sword as a stick to hold the balloon animals. Simply force the end of the blade bubble between the leg bubbles of the animal (Pic 70 and 72). Or we can use the sword as a leash. Just twist about one-inch bubble at the very end of the sword. And lock the free end of this small bubble between the neck and the body of the dog.


Now, let's talk about the plastic sticks for balloons. Usually the plastic sticks came in a pair with the plastic cup. The plastic cup designed to tie the end of the balloon. The cups come in different sizes to hold different balloons. Well, and the sticks also come in different sizes.

Any way, we can attach balloon sculpture to the plastic stick without the cup. Basically, we ca do it in the same fashion as with the sword. Force the plastic stick between two bubbles. In this example I use another variation of a simple dog sculpture made of scrap of three balloons (Pic 73).

As you may noticed, the dog has only two leg bubbles on the front and two leg bubbles on the rear (Pic 74). So, the sculpture should stay firmly on the stick.

In the example with the puddle sculpture there are additional feet bubbles. It makes the stick loose between them. We can work with that anyway (Pic 75).

Hold all leg bubbles together. And rotate them couple times to make what I would call a lock twist on the stick (Pic 76 through 78).



Work the rear leg bubbles in the same fashion (Pic 79 and 80).


We can fix the balloon sculpture on the stick in different positions (Pic 81 and 82).


The plastic sticks usually come in white color. Some times I want to change the color of the stick, for design purpose. It can be done using flat balloon. Put the plastic stick inside of appropriate color flat balloon (Pic 83).

And we can use the same flat balloon to attach the balloon sculpture to the stick. The simplest way is to tie the flat balloon around middle part of the bubble. And then force the plastic stick under the flat balloon. Also, we can tie the flat balloon between two bubbles. Trim off the rest parts of the flat balloon if you want (Pic 84 through 86).



I hope you get the idea how to attach balloon sculpture to the plastic stick (Pic 87 and 88). Also, we can do it using clear sticky tape, sewing thread or rubber glue. Have fun and happy twisting :)

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