How to Make a Flower Balloon

The flower balloon animal is a cute, crowd-pleasing balloon animal/sculpture. Unlike the basic flower balloon animal, this flower is more attractive with its denser petals.

This set of instructions is the first of two parts. In this section, you'll learn how to make the petals. In the second section, you'll learn how to make and add the flower's stem.

• Two 260 balloons. You can use any color balloon for the petals and will probably want to use a green balloon for the stem.

To make this balloon animal, you will need to know how to make a fold twist.

Inflate the balloon to about 2 inches from the end.

Make a small fold twist using a balloon segment that is about 4 inches long.

Make a second fold twist. Try and make it the same size as the first fold twist.

Repeat the process and make third, fourth, and fifth fold twists. Try to make each petal the same size as the first and second fold twists.

Straighten out the five-fold twists so they form the petals of a flower. You're done with the petals.

(To complete the flower, you can move on to a second section where you learn to make and attach the stem. However, you'll find instructions here.)

Briefly, inflate the second (probably green) balloon and leave a 1/2 inch of the inflated balloon at the end.

Taking the nozzle end of the green balloon, make a small basic twist, about 1 inch in length. Join this basic twist to the center of the flower petals. To do this, stretch the basic twist away from the rest of the balloon (stem), and insert the flower, so the petals reside between the nozzle twist and the rest of the balloon.

At this point, you have three options for the center of the balloon flower:

1. Leave the basic twist as is. When you join the "stem" to the petals of the flower, you'll have a nozzle showing in the middle of the flower. This is fine, but it's probably the least finished of the options. A plus, this is the fastest method to make a flower balloon if you're pressed for time or have lots of people waiting in line.
2. Finish the basic twist after joining the stem to the flower. Join the stem to the flower and then take the nozzle and wrap it around the flower, in between the petals. You'll have a flower center that doesn't show the nozzle.
3. Make a tulip twist in the flower's center. Before joining the basic twist of the stem to the flower, make a tulip twist in the nozzle end. Attach the tulip twist to the flower petals as you did in option 1.

Here's the final basic balloon flower attached to the stem. If you like, you can add "leaves" by twisting the "stem" with a couple of fold twists as you would for a basic sword balloon. In this case, you're essentially making the handguard for the sword, but are forming "leaves." One more thought, the technique to quickly make a handguard for a sword applies here to make the leaves.