This week on BMTV we are joined once again by the wonderful Chris Adamo, owner of “The Balloon Crew” and “Balloons Online”. Chris visited us whilst in the UK for his tour back in April and showed us a simple, yet effective design using Quicklinks, which he has used to create cave stalactites. It is also a great technique to use for creating tails, legs or even trees!

The creation can also be called a tapered cone-shape or a cylindrical prism and how Chris creates it is based on the balloon twisting technique the ‘Chain Weave’ using 260Q’s. This design is created from 2 chains of Quicklinks, but in this case the size you inflate the balloons at scales down in size. Using a Premium Twin Air Sizer, you start off at an inflation time of 1.8, then down to 1.4 for the next, then 1.0 and on to 0.9 and then finally 0.5.

To start Chris inflates two grey 12 inch Quicklinks and inflates them using the 1.4 setting. One thing that Chris recommends doing is making sure that most of the neck of the balloon is pulled down over the nozzle when inflating so you are inflating to the top of the balloon. This will help stretch the colour so that it is more continuous throughout the design. When tying the two balloons together, Chris pulls the necks and ties them together, including some the body of the balloon. This means that they can be stretched later when creating the chains.

Chris then inflates another two grey 12 inch Quicklinks, again using the 1.4 setting on the Twin Air Sizer and ties them together. He then inflates two more grey 12 inch Quicklinks but at a 1.0 setting and then ties them either end of Chain A. He then does the same for Chain B, inflating two grey 12 inch Quicklinks at a 1.0 setting and then tying either end of Chain B.

Next he moves on to using 6 inch grey Quicklinks and changes the setting on the Twin Air Sizer to 0.9. When inflating it will come out to start as an oval shape so you can just squash it slightly to create a more rounded shape before tying. He inflates two grey 6 inch Quicklinks and ties one to either end of Chain A. He then inflates another two 6 inch at 0.9 and ties either end of Chain B. Then he inflates two grey 6 inch Quicklinks at 0.5 setting and attaches either end of Chain A and then inflates another two at 0.5 and ties them to either end of Chain B.

You then take your two chains and overlap them where the largest balloons are knotted together. You don’t want to integrate them completely so the knots meet on the two chains, but you just place them on top of one another. You then lift either side of the first chain and twist the first section of the two chains. You then twist each section as you move up the chain until you get to the smallest balloons at the end.

Chris then finishes off the design by creating a point on the end using three 5 inch latex balloons tied together and secured into place.

Anna-Jayne

As always, you can get in touch with us by commenting below, sending us an email or commenting on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like to receive these weekly video updates, you can either keeping checking this blog, subscribe to email updates in your account settings or you can subscribe to our Youtube channel.