Finding ways to boost wellbeing and feel good at home are imperative towards maintaining healthy bodies and minds.

Getting creative at home is a great way to keep yourselves and your families entertained for hours, whilst stimulating those minds and taking a moment to relax and feel good. Enjoy our quick and easy-to-follow guides for fun, feel-good crafts using bits and pieces from around the house.

"Create at Home" crafts are generally aimed at and adaptable for all ages or to participate in as a family, but some crafts may be more age-appropriate than others.

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Follow these steps to create a simple design, and then you can experiment with decorating your balloon however you want.

 

You will need:

• 4 sheets of coloured paper
• Cardboard tube
• String
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue
• Hole punch (or an adult to help you)

Got everything? Let’s get started!

 

First, draw a balloon shape on one of your pieces of paper.

 

Hold all your pieces of paper together and cut around the balloon shape. You want 4 identical balloon shapes. If it’s tricky to cut all the sheets of paper together, then use the first one as a stencil, draw the same shape on each of the other sheets, and cut them out individually.

 

Fold each of your balloon shapes in half.

 

Glue each of your folded balloon shapes together into a pile. Apply glue to one side, then stick the next folded balloon shape on top. Do the same again, until you have a pile of shapes all glue together.

 

Then open the shapes out, like opening a book, and fold them back on themselves. Glue the two outer sides together to make your 3D balloon shape.

 

Hole punch holes into the bottom of the balloon, one for each 'page'. If you don’t have a hole punch, ask an adult to help you punch a hole using a pencil or pen.

Now to make the basket, or gondola, that hangs underneath the balloon.

Cut your toilet roll tube in half. You can save the other half to make a second balloon later.

 

To decorate your gondola cut strips of coloured paper and glue them to the cardboard tube.

 

Use a hole punch, or ask an adult to help you, to make holes in the top of the gondola. You want to have 4 holes, so space them out evenly around the tube.

 

Tie a string to each of the holes in the gondola and attach them to the holes in the balloon.

 

Punch a hole in the top of your balloon and tie some more string to the top, to hang it up with. Then there you have it! Your Hot Air Balloon is complete! You could decorate your balloon more using pens or pencils. Or use different coloured paper.

Now that you know the technique you can get really creative with your designs. You could use larger or smaller paper to make different sized balloons. What about making a few and hanging them from the ceiling to create a fleet of hot air balloons?