Animal Crossing Rainbow Balloon Hat

I have been playing Animal Crossing New Horizons everyday since it came out in March. It is so fun and cute! One of the clothing items you can wear in the game is a silly looking hat made of rainbow balloons. This is how I re-created the hat in real life :)

• 6 twisty balloons
• balloon pump
• scissors

Here is the in-game hat I am re-creating in this Instructable. As you can see, we will need a white, red, yellow, green, blue, and purple twisty balloon. The shape of the hat resembles a top hat with a top, sides, and brim. Let's get started!

First, blow up each balloon a little over half way. There needs to be space in the balloon for all the twists we will be making. Fill them with too much air and there won't be space for the twists and the balloon will pop. Fill them with not enough air and you won't have enough bubbles to make the hat.

Tie the nozzles together of all the balloons except for the white one. With the white one, make a small bubble and twist the nozzle down around the twist you made. Twist the white balloon in with the other colors so the bubble is on top and balloons fan out into a star shape in rainbow color order.

Starting with the white balloon, make a 2-inch bubble and a 1-inch bubble. Make a pinch twist using the 1-inch bubble by bringing the sides of the balloon together, pinching the bubble, and twisting the two ends of the bubble together. Repeat this for each color of balloon.

Starting with the white balloon, make a 2-inch bubble and twist it around the red pinch twist bubble connecting them so that the white balloon is now going down and the red balloon is going across. Repeat for the red balloon connecting it to the yellow and so on, until you've connected all the colors in a circle.

The top of the hat is complete!

Twist a small spacer bubble in the white and red balloons. Then twist a slightly smaller than 2-inch bubble in the white balloon and twist it onto the end of the red spacer bubble, connecting them. Repeat this around the ring. The purple balloon will need to be weaved into the space between the red and white 2-inch bubbles to get it twisted around the white spacer bubble.

Repeat the steps above for another row, making the sides of the hat longer. Always make the spacer bubbles the same size throughout the hat, but make the other bubbles slightly smaller than the row before it so that the hat very gently tapers inward.

The sides are done!

In each balloon, make two 1-inch bubbles and pinch twist the second one. Starting with the white balloon, twist a 3-4 inch bubble and twist it onto the red pinch twist bubble to connect them. Repeat for the red balloon connecting it to the yellow and so on, until you've connected all the colors in a circle. Manipulate the bubbles so the brim of the hat is going out from the sides of the hat.

Make sure you've twisted the ends of each balloon around the pinch twists and cut off the excess balloon hanging from the brim. If you've twisted them well, then your balloon hat will hold and not deflate.

Your rainbow balloon hat is complete!