Balloon blooming cherry

Materials: balloons, air pump, scissors and sewing thread.

Buy balloons on Amazon (paid link): 

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 Buy an air pump on Amazon (paid link): 

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In order to make blooming cherry we have to make a lot of relatively small flowers. "Relatively" small given the size of balloons we use! As always, I am going to use 260's balloons to make all parts of this sculpture. There are different ways to make flowers. We discussed how to make the smallest 5 petals flower in previously published instruction Balloon flower ring. It should work for our sculpture. Though, we also can make for this sculpture any small size three, four, or even modify the six petals flower as five petals flower. I am going to use each balloon to make two different size flowers. Below you will find short overview of how to make five petals flower. Inflate pink balloon leaving about 10 - 12 cm flat tail (Pic 1).

Twist the first soft about 8 cm long bubble (Pic 2).

Lock both ends of the first bubble in one lock twist (Pic 3). We have made one petal.

Work in this way to make all five petals (Pic 4). You have made five petals flower.

The flower needs one more bubble at the center. Twist the same or softer and smaller size bubble. Lock both ends of the sixth bubble in one lock twist. We have made 5 petals flower. Cut off nicely the rest of the balloon. We are going to use this part of the balloon to make smaller size flower. Keep inflated this part of the balloon. Fix all bubbles of the flower in proper positions (Pic 5).

You can work the smaller size flower exactly as described above, just make all bubbles softer and smaller size. The bubbles could be any smaller size up to thumb nail size. In this example I start twisting bubbles from the opposite end of the balloon. This way the first round bubble will represent center of the flower. Force air away from the nozzle to the very end of the balloon. Twist the first bubble at the round end of the balloon. Make all bubbles soft and about 2 cm size. We can lock both ends of all (the 2nd through the 6th) bubbles in one lock twist working them one by one. Or we can make chain of all 5 bubbles (Pic 6).

Then we lock both ends of the chain of the last five (the second through the sixth) bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 7).

And now we lock both ends of each bubble (the 2nd through the 6th) in one lock twist (Pic 8). Fix all bubbles in proper positions.

Working in this way we can make two different size flowers using just one balloon (Pic 9 and 10). Or you can use one balloon to make two middle size flowers and etc. You have to make as many flowers as you want for this sculpture.

Actually it would make more sense if we first made the tree or just a branch of the tree. I am going to use light brown balloons to make the branch of the cherry tree. We can use for this purpose any other color (dark brown, black or even green) balloons. Inflate brown balloon leaving about 5 - 6 cm flat tail (Pic 11).

We can make joints of the branch of various sizes. Let's make the first about 25 - 30 cm long bubble. I am want to put the branch inside of a vase. Therefore, the first long bubble (joint) should be a bit longer than other joints of the branch. Twist the next two (the 2nd and the 3rd) soft about 3 cm bubbles (Pic 12).

Lock all ends of the 2nd and the 3rd bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 13). We have made the 1st joint of the branch.

Twist the 4th about 20 cm long bubble. Twist the next two (the 5th and the 6th) soft about 3 cm bubbles (Pic 14).

Lock all ends of the 5th and the 6th bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 15). We have made the 2nd joint.

Twist the 7th about 20 cm long bubble. Twist the next two (the 8th and the 9th) soft about 3 cm bubbles (Pic 16).

Lock all ends of the 8th and the 9th bubbles in one lock twist (Pic 17). We have made the 3rd joint. The rest of the balloon is the 10th bubble. It represents the 4th joint.

Use the 2nd brown balloon to make two more joints (Pic 18). Cut off the rest of the balloon and use it to make another pair of joints. This way you will use just one balloon to make two separated pairs of joints.

Attach pair of joints between the 2nd and the 3rd bubbles of the first balloon (Pic 19).

Attach another pair of joints between the 5th and the 6th bubbles of the first balloon (Pic 20). We have made the branch.

You can  to as many additional joints as you want. In this example I use scraps of brown balloons to make 2 more single joints. One single joint I attached between the 8th and 9th bubbles of the first balloon. And another single joint I attached between the 2nd and the 3rd bubbles of the first balloon (Pic 21). Fix all bubbles in proper positions. You can bend long bubbles to shape the branch properly.

We can use deflated remains of pink balloons (flat tails) to attach flowers between small brown bubbles of the branch. I prefer to use sewing thread of the same color as the branch to attach flowers to the branch. In this example I am going to use black sewing thread for this purpose - it would make easier for you to see how I attach flower to the branch (Pic 22). The brown sewing thread is almost invisible on the brown balloon :)

Loop one end of the sewing thread between bubbles of the flower (Pic 23).

Then you have to place the flower at the desirable spot on the branch. Loop the sewing thread around the brown balloon of the branch. Fix and hide the ends of the sewing thread between pink bubbles of the flower. Make sure the loop is tight and holds the flower at the branch (Pic 24).

In this example I attached total of 7 flowers to the branch (Pic 25). All flowers faced in the same direction. It is the front side of the sculpture.

I did not put any flowers on the back side of the sculpture (Pic 26). Though you may want to place some flowers on the back of the sculpture, specially if the back side is visible to viewers. We can use the sculpture as it is. Hang it on the walls using sewing threads and clear sticky tape.

Here, I put the cherry branch in the pink vase that we made about a week ago. Surprisingly, the vase is yet in a good shape to hold the branch (Pic 27 and 28). You have to load the vase with some object (small stuffed animal toy or just for example I use my kid shoe :) to balance the vase with flowers on any flat surface. Congratulations, we have made blooming cherry! Have fun and happy twisting :)