I made a balloon sculpture to make a giant number
16 for my brothers 16th birthday.
Here is a short tutorial of how I made it and how
you can make your own.
The number 1 is made of 72 balloons while the 6
is made from 85 balloons. 157 balloons in total.
To make the numbers I used a stand that usually
use from my lighting set up. You just need a long straight pole to wrap the
balloons around.
Blow up four balloons
Tie two together by their necks then the other
two.
Twist the two lots of balloons together to make a
bunch of four balloons.
This is one layer of the balloon sculpture.
Place the balloons to the bottom of the pole and
push the pole between two of the balloons. The balloons should stay on the
pole.
Build another layer of balloons in the same way.
Place the next layers of balloons on the pole between the gaps of the last
layer of balloons.
Continue this until you reach the top of the
pole.
Now you have made a balloon column.
To make the top of the one, I simply made three
layers of balloons which were threaded through a piece of string instead of the
pole. The string was then attached to
the top of the pole.
To make the six, I made a balloon column first.
Then I made the circle of the six out of wire and twisted the balloons around
it.
I only used three balloons in the balloon layer
around the sixes circle. This stoped the balloons from getting to wide, and it
left a bigger hole in the middle.
Now you have a completed Balloon Number 16. If
you want other numbers you will have to change it slightly to make the correct
shape.