How to Make a Balloon Flower

Today, Môssieur Ballon will teach you... how to make a flower!

To make the petals of the flower, we are going to start by inflating a balloon all the way to the tip, without leaving any room at the end. However, once the balloon is fully inflated, we will need to let the air escape a little bit, to lower the pressure and soften the balloon. Then, by pressing the tip of the balloon, we can give ourselves a slightly wider margin, which we will attach to the balloon knot to form one big loop. Make sure the air pressure is evenly balanced all along the big loop.

Then, stretching the balloon like this, find the halfway mark on the loop, which needs to be exactly opposite the knot, in order to get two segments of equal length. Then, take the two segments together in your hands, being sure to divide their length into three parts as equal as possible.

Ok, now this next bit will be a bit tricky! With each of your hands, alternating each time, you need to press and twist the two segments around together as if you were making a regular bubble, except here, you're making 2 bubbles together, and on top of it your hands can't move entirely freely because they're working more or less at the same time on two different parts of the balloon.

Feel free to pause the video, try it a couple of times, you should get the hang of it eventually. Once you have your 6 balloon segments made, place them in a zigzag like this. Press, bring the 6 parts together, taking them between your thumb and forefinger, like this.

Next take 3 petals from the same side of the zigzag and twist them around their base, to keep all the petals together in place. Then, move away your thumb and forefinger, and arrange the petals more nicely. There... the hardest part is over!

Now let's take another balloon, green preferably, to make the stem. Inflate it leaving a margin of about three fingers, tie the knot, and evenly spread out the air pressure.

We're going to start with a tulip-twist. As a reminder, it's about pushing the knot back inside the balloon with your forefinger, you gently pull out your finger and finally, press and twist, to keep the tulip-twist in place.

Let's go back to the petals, stretching apart any two at random, in order to give us enough space to house the base of the tulip-twist up to the center of the petals. To minimize pressure and avoid one of either balloons bursting, you need to push the tulip-twist gently twisting it slightly, rather than forcing it all in one go.

Once the core of the flower is firmly seated in the middle of the petals, make a small little bubble, then a second one of the same size, which we'll make into a pinch-twist. The idea is that the petals of the flower should be the same length as the stem.

Control the air one last time... so that there's no room left in the remaining portion of balloon and the air pressure in it is evenly spread out. We are now going to make a zigzag with the remaining portion of balloon, and place our hand at the center of the zigzag. The last segment of the balloon, and the segment supporting the petals, should both stick out a little from the zigzag. Press and block the center of the zigzag, by pivoting each side of the zigzag, opposite to each other, with your thumb and forefinger.

Like this, we have formed, in one single motion, two loops of equal size which will form the leaves of the flower. Make sure the bottom and top of the stem are centered in the middle of the leaves. Give the stem a little curve so that its shape looks a bit more natural...

There it is! Say it with flowers! See you soon for another lesson... with Môssieur Ballon !