DIY: Mini Stress Ball Squishy Face

Mini stress balls.

The winter months are here, holiday season has just past us by and the magic, clown and face paint gigs tend to slow down. This is always a good time to try new ideas, learn a new trick or go through the inventory and see what needs to be tossed or re ordered. While sifting through my balloon supplies I notice my super hero balloons were “coming of age” as it were. When the latex starts to dry, it becomes brittle and more likely to pop when inflated. So instead of trashing them all together, I decided to put them to use as a new toy. Tutorials on how to make your own stress balls is all over the internet, however you won’t have to leave this page because we will show you how right here. You can also use smiley face or other imprinted balloons with this project.

Supplies:

~Small round balloons. We used 5″ round to match the diameter of the face balloons.

~Flour

~Funnel

~Small cup

~Straw or chopstick

~Scissors

~Super glue.

~Balloon pump

Prep:

~I find that first inflating the balloons then releasing air to soften them works best. Do this with 3 balloons. Using the pump to inflate balloons is suggested, if you inflate by mouth the moisture left in the balloon nozzle can prohibit good transfer of flour.

~Once balloons are softened, cut the nozzles off two of them just above the body of balloon. Leave the third with nozzle intact, this is the balloon to be filled with flour.

How to fill:

Step 1. Place nozzle of the balloon over the end of the funnel; make sure you go up far enough to grip the balloon and the funnel.

Step 2. Pour small amounts of flour into funnel, use the straw or chopstick to push flour into balloon.

Step 3. Move flour around in balloon to help it settle and release any trapped air.

Step 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the balloon will not take the flour. You will have a ball about the size of a hard-boiled egg yolk. Too much flour will not leave the ball squishy.

How to assemble:

Step 1. Take the flour filled balloon and pinch near the neck of nozzle and body of balloon, then dump any flour left in neck back into Dixie cup.

Step 2. Inflate the balloon with pump just enough for the flour to settle to bottom of balloon and very slowly release air. Not Too Fast or you will have a cloud of flour.

Step 3. With scissors, trim off the nozzle of the filled balloon.

Step 4. Turn one of the prepped balloons inside out and place the filled balloon open end down into the inverted balloon.

Step 5. Slowly roll the outside balloon back over the filled balloons and smooth out any wrinkles.  The flour is now secure.

Step 6. Repeat this step with second prepped balloon.

The first phase is complete.

The face:

~ Prepare the face balloon by inflating and releasing the air and trimming off nozzle just as before.

Step 1. Roll face balloon inside out and place the balloon ball open end down inside the inverted balloon.

Step 2. Roll inverted balloon back over the balloon ball, smooth out wrinkles.

Step 3. Apply super glue around edge of the opening in the outer balloon and push down to adhere. I advise using the back of a pencil or your chopstick as not to glue your finger to balloon.

It doesn’t take long for the super glue to set, your stress ball is ready to play with in just a few minutes.

These are pretty simple and cheap to make. Try squishing the balloon to change the look of the face, kinda like silly putty.

The balloons are small and easily fit in your pocket or bag for handouts; due to the smaller diameter, use caution in giving to a small child, they could be a choke hazard. Of course all good clowns know to warn parents of the choking hazard with any balloon creation.

Have fun and see you soon!