Clowning Around

I neglected to mention one of my best Christmas presents from Damon. He got me BALLOONS! Lots of long, skinny balloons for making balloon animals. Or swords & flowers. That's what I'm best at.

This summer, my sister-in-law, Cotton Candy the Clown, taught me how to make a few different balloon sculptures. I hadn't done any of it since then, but I told Damon I wanted to do more, so he got me a variety bag of balloons, an air pump, and a how-to book. We've have had lots of fun since then. Adah's actually quite good at bending and twisting the balloons into recognizable creatures--probably as good as I am, if not better. Gunnar loves giraffes and swords. Maggie likes flowers.

Here's a flower I made. We orginally thought that the variety pack came without green(!), but last time we pulled them out we discovered that the "black" balloons were really black, purple, dark blue, & green. Now I can make flowers with green stems, which is so much more respectable. Respectability is important in balloon art.

And now, word of my novice skill has gotten out. I've been suckered into my first ballooning gig at the library in April. Adah is going to help me out and I've requested that they look for at least one more amateur to keep up with the crowd. I better start twisting!