I came across a diaper genie brand refill tub at the thrift store and bought it not knowing why. When I opened it I realized that the bag was one long tube. I have spent some time doing restaurant magic and balloon animal tying years ago and thought it would be interesting if the bag could be twisted. Obviously the world has survived without GIANT balloon animals and there is no practical reason to make them. But it was fun and not to be cheesy required a lot of teamwork to accomplish. Truth be told I do not have a lot of pictures for this as I never intended it to be an instructable, but when I got to thinking how much fun it was I had to share it. I hope you like

Step 1: Investigate the How to

There is a ton of great instructables already available on how to tie balloon animals and even getting a small bag of animal balloons to get the basics might be a good idea before you try this. Or if your ready let's go.

Step 2: Materials

Diaper Genie brand refill, Knowledge of basic balloon animal tying, twist ties off of a cheap box of trash bags or save borrow some from the produce section ( I know the picture shows rubber bands they really only worked for when we got to the tail of the figures.) A good air pump. we used a mattress pump from the thrift store but you could easily use a battery operated as well.

Step 3: Gather Some Like Minded Friends

This was definitely a two person(minimum) job. It was actually a lot of fun my twisting partner was my 11 year old son who actually enjoyed the activity. It was great too on a level that required us to work together which can sometimes be lost in the dog eat dog world. Not to sound to philosophical but it was the closet to a team building activity I've ever done.

Step 4: Measuring

Initially I thought we could just use a yardstick and multiple the average balloon animal by three feet of length on the bag but that didn't leave enough the bottom line is to really just try to use at least 12 to 15 feet of bag if it ends up to long on the back end that is easily fixed. It's better to have room than not to otherwise it could pop and not work right. Also when you do that you really only get maybe two good animals out of one refill. Consider though that through tying basic animals by just moving a few bubbles around you can create 2 different animals from one bag. A rabbit becomes a basset hound for example or a wiener dog a giraffe.

Step 5: Twisting

Tie off your front end with a simple knot don't be afraid to make it good and tight. Rubber band the nozzle of your air pump to the back end of the bag. Now one person has to be in charge of the pump, the other(s) need to twist bubbles like you would on a normal balloon except you will need to twist tie periodically only because the bag will not act like a latex balloon where it stays together on a twist. Mostly it just takes practice as there is no easy way to measure. But a good rule of thumb is if instructions say a 1 inch bubble for a leg make it a 12 inch. Mostly eyeballing is the easiest and once you,ve practiced on balloons you get a feel for it.

Step 6: Afterthoughts

All in all as I said before this was just kind of a crazy fun thing to do I thought it could be fun for a kids party. The chance to participate by my son was well received and I have to admit I enjoyed it too.