This week we are very pleased to welcome Roger Daws to BMTV. Roger is a balloon twister who teaches for Amscan and is here to talk about the 260A balloons, as well as showing us a few twisting designs that you can make yourself.

260A Balloons

So to start with let’s talk about the 260A balloons themselves. These are Amscan’s entry into the modelling balloon market that has been largely dominated by Qualatex with their ever-popular 260Q balloons. As you may know; 260 stands for 2 inches wide by 60 inches long and one of the benefits of the 260A balloons is that their length is closer to 70 inches. This means that you can make more twists with 260A balloons, making them great for large decorations or columns.

Another difference with the 260A balloons is that they are not powder coated. Roger explains that they are coated in a liquid that evaporates during the manufacturing process leaving them soft without being slippery or greasy. He goes on to say that during the summer months when there is less moisture in the air, the 260A balloons don’t go cloudy so they are great for longevity.

They have been on the market now for around a year and currently come in 12 colours (although their are more colours to come). These are: black, white, purple, lilac, yellow, dark blue, light blue, blush, orange, dark green, light green, red, pink and magenta. The 260As are packed in bags of single colour balloons and there is also a mixed bag of balloons. Speaking of packaging, the balloons are supplied straight in the bag so you can just pull them out and put them in your modelling bag without fuss! There are more colours coming to the market so keep your eyes peeled in our new products section.

Standard flower deisgn

So Roger is going to show us the basic flower design. He says that this is the design that he gets asked for the most when he is teaching balloon twisiting as it has so many uses. Also the twists that are required in the flower design can be utilised in many other designs so it is a good design to practice on. Decorators can use it as a collar for a balloon or in columns but Roger is going to show us how to make a full flower design complete with stem and stamen.

So to start with you need an inflated balloon! Roger always leaves about 9 inches at the end of the balloon uninflated for the air to escape into while you are performing your twists. He says that the biggest mistake he sees is people over-inflating the balloon, this leaves the pressure inside the balloon quite high and makes the balloon difficult to twist.

Take the end with the knot and fold it over in your hand. Hold the balloon so the bend fills 4 fingers of your hand and twist to make a loop. Take the knot of the balloon (not the nozzle) and wrap the knot round the twist to secure it in place and pass the knot through the loop. Pull it through tightly and let go to secure it.

Next perform the same 4-finger-loop further down the balloon but this time perform a twist directly under your little finger. Some people will measure the length of balloon they want and twist before your looping the balloon, this can cause the balloon to burst as you are creating high pressure in the bend of the balloon. If you bend if first then twist, the two loops will go together a lot easier when you twist them.

Continue this pattern, measuring with your hand, twisting under your hand and folding the petals together until you have 5 petals. Most flowers come in odd numbers so 3, 5, 7 or 9 petals will look the best. However Roger did make a 6 petal design that he uses for a bases as even numbers of petals are more stable than their odd counterparts. If you have an extra length of balloon left over, twist it and cut the end to deflate it. Pull the extra length out and wrap it around the flower design. Pull it out tightly and let it go, it will dissapear into the flower to secure itself.

Next to make the stem, take a green balloon and tie the knot into the flower by wrapping it around the head. Next all you do is make three leaves by repeating the petal design halfway down the stem. You could put a round in the top of the flower for the stamen and even coordinate it with a birthday design if you’d like. Roger is going to do something different! He inflates a yellow 260A with about 2 inches of air. He then ties it off and weakens the tail of the balloon. He twists the air bubble in half and squeezes the second portion to push it to the other end of the balloon. He then folds the stamen into the flower creating great movement in the design. You can even just do this with flower heads without the stem if you were creating a column or larger balloon decoration.

Dog

Now onto the interesting part, Greg is going to try to make a balloon dog! If you want to give it a go as well, all you need is an inflated 260 balloon with a little gap of uninflated balloon at the end. First, fold then nozzle-end of the balloon so you can hold both hands together. Turn your hands in opposite directions to make a twist in the balloons. This will create the ears and the nose of the dog. Next perform the same function further down the balloon, fold the balloon over and twist about half-way down the fold to create the front legs. Now onto the back legs, decide what length you want for the body and do the same again further down the body, fold and twist! So that’s the basic dog, to create a pom-pom tail split a 2 inch bubble towards the end and give it a good squeeze to send it to the end of the balloon.

3-minute balloon

Roger explains that balloon twisters usually aim for 3 minutes to make a balloon twisting decoration. When you’ve got a que of people that all want your lovely decorations, you want to keep the designs simple enough so that people aren’t waiting to long. So for this purpose, he has a few “3-minute balloon” creations such as this cute penguin design and this bear in a heart. Roger might come back and show us how to do a few of these designs one day so keep an eye out for that.

That’s it for this week, see you next time.

Rob

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