How to Make a Balloon Sword: A Beginner's Complete Guide

Let's start with our first balloon sword. If you need help with the basic techniques, you'll find our video link in the information section. For this balloon, start off with one inch of uninflated end. Begin with a small basic twist about an inch in length. Now you're going to make a fold twist about three inches in height. Take the end of the balloon through the fold twist and you have the makings of a basic balloon sword. These are fast and easy to make but not very stable. If you have a bunch of kids and parents having sword battles at a party, you're going to find that these things tend to get out of shape as well as pop. That actually goes for rather quickly. But they're fast and easy and we're going to show you some variations now on it. For this variation, you're going to need about three to four inches of uninflated end. Begin again. This is very similar to the first process. Begin with a small basic twist and a fold twist about three inches in height. Now you're going to make a series of small basic twists about an inch in length. It kind of resembles a string of pearls. Push the opposite end of the balloon through the fold twist and now you get a distinctly different look. A far more ornate balloon sword. It takes a lot longer to make but I think the results are quite worth it. It's a great looking sword. This one won't be as stable as the first version because of all the additional basic twists in it but it looks great. And one more variation. It's very similar in construction but has a decidedly different look. Once again, three and a half inches. Three inches of uninflated end. You'll have to experiment with that. Now we're going to do something slightly different. You can do this on all the balloons of this variety. You can actually do a pinch twist here as opposed to leaving it leaving it as a small basic twist. I think it gives a more finished look without having the nozzle at the end. And you can look at it for yourself and see if you like it. Again, our five after the fold twist are five basic twists about an inch in diameter of piece resembling a string of pearls. Once again, we take the end push it through the fold twist and we basically have the same sword as the last version. But check out what I'm doing here. I'm actually bending it in the opposite direction. And now with the pinch twist on the bottom and the blade bent up as opposed to down, it gives it a decidedly different look. There it is. Now let's compare the two. This is version two and version three side by side. There you can see how they look different between the two. I like the green one because when people are holding the sword they actually have a just a segment of balloon as opposed to holding the pearls which I think is more comfortable as well as will prove to be more durable. So between these two, I like the green one. And you have your choice whatever you like. Okay, this is the second basic type of sword balloon made from a single balloon. This is the deluxe version shown there. We're going to start out fast and easy. You need an inch of uninflated end. This is the very basic one. The basic twist is about four to five inches. One fold twist maybe about two inches high. A second fold twist. Try to match it. Match the first one and you're basically done. You have a simple balloon sword. These are fast and easy to make. The thing is they're not very stable and we're going to add a couple details on this next version which will make it more attractive as well as add stability. Once again, maybe an inch and a half to two inches of uninflated end. And what we're going to do is instead of starting with the basic twist that creates the handle, we're going to do two pinch twists. This will form a decorative element at the end of the handle. And I think it looks a lot better than just having the nozzle balloon. Now a basic twist to form the handle about four to five inches. One fold twist. A second fold twist that matches the first. We have our hand guards and a basic balloon you can stop a balloon sword. You can stop at this point. We're going to add one more element that I think looks great and adds to the stability. There's the first pinch twist that's going to go between the hand guards and between the blade and handle. The second pinch twist and there you have it. A balloon sword made out of a single balloon. It takes a little longer to make but it's that addition of the pinch twist between the hand guards that really adds stability to this balloon. This one will prove to be among the more durable single balloon swords that you can make. Now there's a fast way to make this balloon and I'm going to show it to you now. Think of an s or a z when you're twisting. Well it's up to you depending on the way you look at it. But there's the s shape. I'm making an s out of the balloon. Now I'm not actually going to twist it from this point here. I'm just showing you the s but see how I compress it down. Now the s shape is there with one single twist through the middle. I make the handle as well as both hand guards in a single fluid motion. When you've got a lot of balloon swords to make, this might be the way to go. It's very fast and this is what the pros use. And now we have a second variation on this. Let's start out with the basic version. You need about an inch and a half to two inches there on the uninflated end. Basic balloon twists about three to four inches for the handle. One full twist, two full twists and a third. Try and get these full twists about the same. And now we've spread out the hand guards to make something that looks more like a foil. The sword takes a completely different shape at this point even though it's based on the earlier version. So that's another sword you can make that's popular as well as fairly durable. And finally, a fast way to make this about an inch or inch and a half on the uninflated end. Now instead of an s as we did in the last fast version, advanced version, I'm making an m. Do you see the m right there out of the balloons? Kind of line them up and right through the middle, there's one twist, a fluid motion and that creates the three full twists in single motion. And you have your sword. This is great for parties where you have to make a lot of balloons and it's a great sword that kids and everyone will enjoy. Just for fun, let's do a fast one without purposes of demonstration stomping. We're just going to fly right through it just like I was making these. And right there in that little time, that's one balloon ready to go. Hand out and the kid can go out there jumping the bounce house and he's ready to ready to take on the world.