Balloon Basics

This is a free video (The video is located after the text). Press the play button and watch it directly from this page In this video I will show you how to create a simple balloon column with items you can find on every party store! (Note: Since this balloon column doesn't have any stand in it, it is better to use it indoors only). A balloon column is a great way to decorate an event with balloons. In order to create the balloon column in this video, you will need the following items:

• 16 X 12’’ Balloons (Color 1)
• 16 X 12’’ Balloons (Color 2)
• Another 12’’ Balloon (For the Water Weight)
• 2 Modelling Balloons (Long Balloons)
• A Foil (Mylar) Balloon
• Recommended: a Balloon Pump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMB-4l92do4   About the list of item you will need in order to create a balloon column I do not recommend to blow up balloons using your mouth, mainly because it’s an effort to inflate so many balloons by mouth, but also because the pump allows to inflate all balloons to the same size (which is important to create a beautiful and an aesthetic balloon design), so I recommend you to buy a balloon pump to inflate the balloons with. The balloon column is usually based on quads of balloons (that means 4 round balloons that are attached to each other), and at it's bottom there's usually a balloon water weight that stabilize the column. Note that a professional balloon designer will use a metal frame, so that the balloon column will be straight and very stable. The balloons I use here can be inflated to a maximum size of 12 inches (that’s why they are called, 12'' balloons) but we will inflate them to a smaller size. To create our balloon column, we will use 16 balloons in one color and additional 16 balloons in another color. Here I chose pink and white balloons. In addition, we will need one extra 12-inch balloon (no matter what color) to create a balloon water weight to stabilize the bottom of the column. Later we will also use two modelling balloons. These are the balloons that we usually make balloon animals with (like a balloon dog or a balloon sword), but here, we will use them to connect the balloons in the balloon column to each other. I strongly encourage you to use these long balloons, but if you do not have long balloons, you can use a ribbon or a fishing line instead. In addition, we also have one more special balloon here. This is the balloon that will be placed at the top of the column. This balloon is called Mylar or foil Balloon, in this case, it is a round "happy birthday" balloon. Notice that I matched the colors of the round balloons to the colors of the foil balloon. How to make a balloon column? The first thing to do is to create a balloon water weight. That means that we are going to fill a 12-inch balloon with water. Take a 12-inch balloon, stretch it over the faucet’s opening like this, and gently turn on the water. Now, pull the neck of the balloon off of the faucet, and tie the balloon. Notice the size of the water weight. If it’ll be too small, our balloon column will be unstable, and if we’ll make it too big it might not fit properly under the balloon column   Inflating the balloons And now, we will inflate all our 32 round balloons to the same size! By the way, inflating balloons to the same size is a task that anyone who works with balloons professionally can easily do using a special pump or by measuring the balloons using a balloon sizer. But, of course I will show you now how to inflate all your balloons to the size of 8 inches (or 21 centimetres) without using any special equipment. So, how do you do that? If you use a green pump like the one I use in the video, inflate each balloon with 15 full pumps. If you do not have a pump, you can place two chairs 8 inches (or 21 cm) apart. You inflate the balloon to a larger size, and then, as you slowly take the air out of the balloon, try to pass it gently between the two chairs. When the balloon passes easily between the two chairs, that means that it is inflated to the appropriate size. By the way, if you want to learn how to make balloon designs professionally and not measure balloons with chairs, please click here and check our balloon decoration tutorials   And now we will always tie two balloons together How do we tie them? We will cross the two balloons like that and stretch the two nozzles, then we will turn this nozzle around the other nozzle twice. and then we will tie a normal knot Let’s do the same with two white balloons that we inflated to the same size of course Then we take the two pairs of balloons (the white and pink ones) and interlock them. Then we will switch places between one of the white balloons and one of the pink balloons, twice.  And so we actually created a balloon “quad”. We will use this quad as the bottom part of our balloon column. We will also create the other balloon quads onto our balloon column in the exact same way, but now is the time to attach our balloon water weight to the bottom quad so it will stabilize our balloon column. We'll tie the water weight at the connection point of the four balloons. Now, stretch the nuzzle of the water weight and wrap it around two different balloons Finally, we will make a double knot to make sure it will not get undone. And now, let's tie the end of the long balloon to the exact same place.  Here, too, I double-check to make sure that this balloon won't unravel when we stretch it.   Stacking balloon quads into a balloon column And now, let's see how to connect the second quad (by the way, we will also connect the other quads of the balloon column in the same way). I place the next balloon quad in a diagonal form to the previous quad. This diagonal makes the balloon column more stable and also creates a spiral pattern on the column, just like a candy cane. Then, I firmly stretch the long balloon, pushing it down into the center of the balloon quad, and then, I twist the long balloon tightly around two different balloons Then I inflate and tie more and more pairs of balloons, create more and more balloon quads, and stack the quads on each other in the exact same way. Notice that you are keeping a close eye on the colors of the balloons, so that the column will eventually look like a spiral. Our column will be 8 levels high, which means it will consist of 8 balloon quads. And now, let's get to the top of the column. To do this I will use our foil balloon. We will open the foil balloon and inflate it with a pump. Note that if you do not have a pump, you can inflate the mylar balloon by inserting a straw into the balloon inflating nozzle, and blow into the straw. I will inflate this balloon with a pump.  So, I take a pump, put it in the balloon's nozzle, and inflate the balloon. Occasionally, I check to see if the balloon is inflated enough, and I stop when it's already fully inflated. When you're done inflating the mylar, you're in for a surprise! Mylar balloons have an automatic valve, so the air doesn’t get out when you stop inflating them However, to attach the mylar to our balloon column, put the middle of the long balloon at the beginning of the nozzle and roll the nozzle upwards. Then we will make a double knot in the long balloon Now we can take the long balloon that is attached to the foil balloon and wrap it twice around the top quad of the balloon column. And this is it! our balloon column is ready! P.S. If you want to try more advanced balloon column designs, try to change the size of each quad or try to use a different mylar balloon