Saturday, December 5, 2015

Balloon candy cane


Supplies: balloons, an air pump and scissors.

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

I am going to use the same weaving technique as in a previously published instruction "How to make balloon arch, balloon pole" to make balloon candy cane. Inflate eight balloons leaving about 7 cm flat tails (Pic 1 and 2). In this example I am going to use 4 red and 4 white balloons to make spiral color pattern.


We are going to work balloons in pairs. Each pair consist of one red and one white balloon. I work this sculpture starting from the top. Let's make one red about 3 cm bubble. Lock both ends of the bubble in one lock twist. Make the white about 3 cm bubble. Lock both ends of the white bubble in one lock twist. We have made small additional bubbles (Pic 3).

Lock white and red additional bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 4). We have prepared the first pair of balloons. 

Tie nozzles of the the second pair of balloons with the additional bubbles of the first pair of balloons (Pic 5). We have made the top end of the sculpture. We need the small additional bubbles just to cover the knots.

We are going to work all balloons in pairs, twisting two bubbles at the same time. Twist and lock in one move about 8 cm long bubbles of the first pair (Pic 6). We have to alternate balloons after making each pair of bubbles to make the spiral color pattern. So, you have to place the rest of the red balloon next to the white bubble and the rest of the white balloon next to the red bubble.

Hold the second pair of balloons together placing one balloon on each side of the sculpture. Twist and lock about 15 cm bubbles (Pic 7).

The candy cane should have semicircle shape handle at the top. We have to twist shorter size bubbles on the inner side of the semicircle to make the semicircle shape.  Here I twist the next red about 10 cm bubble. Twist the next white about 15 cm bubble (Pic 8).

Lock ends of both bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 9).

All bubbles of the second pair of balloons we twist of the same about 15 cm size. Twist and lock the next bubbles of the second pair (Pic 10).

We twist all short bubbles of the first pair of balloons about 10 cm size and the long bubbles of about 15 cm size.  Always make the short bubbles on the same side of the sculpture. Twist and lock the next pair of bubbles of the first pair of balloons (Pic 11 and 12).


We can work in this way to make the semicircle shape of any size. It already looks good with just 4 short bubbles  (Pic 13). 

I made the semicircle with 5 short bubbles (Pic 14).

The rest of the sculpture we have to work twisting all bubbles of the same about 15 cm size. Work in this way to the end of the balloons (Pic 15).

I attach the third pair of balloons to the last pair of bubbles of the first pair of balloons (Pic 16).

Cut off the rest parts of the first pair balloons (Pic 17).

Twist and lock the next bubbles of the second pair of balloons (Pic 18).

Attach the fourth pair of balloons to the end of the sculpture (Pic 19). Cut off the rest parts of the second pair of balloons.

Work the rest part of the sculpture in the same way as before - twist all bubbles of the same size. At the end I lock ends of all four balloons in one lock twist (Pic 20). Now we can cut off the rest of the balloons and tie off ends.

Or we can decorate this end of the sculpture in the same way as we did at the beginning. Just make one or two small additional bubbles. And then cut off the rest of the balloons (Pic 21 and 22).

Congratulations! We have made balloon candy can. This sculpture is about 4 feet long, though if you want you should have no problem making it even bigger. Have fun and happy twisting :)

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