It’s women in aviation week this week, and as it happens it’s also Bostik Blogger’s ‘Flying’ theme this month, so having already learned all about Amelia Earhart recently, we looked at someone different this time – Élisabeth Thible, the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. From Wikipedia:
Élisabeth Thible, or Tible, born in Lyon was the first woman on record to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. On June 4, 1784, eight months after the first manned balloon flight, Thible flew with Mr. Fleurant on board a hot air balloon christened La Gustave in honour of King Gustav III of Sweden’s visit to Lyon.
We decided to make hot air balloon tea-light candless, which looked really pretty floating about in our indoor lemon tree… until they got nice and hot and started melting the foam sheets and the glue! So we decided that perhaps a candle wasn’t the best idea. Fortunately we were able to pop out the tealight candle and fill the holder with birdseed – which isn’t much use on our indoor tree, but will be once we transfer it outside!
For hot air balloon bird feeders you will need
- A tealight candle holder (the metal ones you normally throw out after use work well)
- Three equal lengths of floristry or craft wire and a smaller length.
- String, long enough to wrap around the tealight candle holder
- Five different colours of foam rubber sheets, cut into equal sized teardrop shapes
- Strong glue and glue gun or Bostik’s Glu Dots for metal bits
How to make hot air balloon bird feeders
I started by preparing all the parts:
- Cut the craft wire into three equal parts
- Make a loop with the fourth and twist the bottom
- Wind the string around the tealight holder to get the length right and cut it
- Cut out a teardrop shape on the first foam sheet, then trace four others so that they’re the same size
Use the glue gun or glue dots to attach the ends of the three bits of wire to the bottom of the tealight holder.
Glue the sides of the tealight holder well, then wrap the string around it. Hold it for a few minutes so that it can set properly and hold fast. Twist the tops of the the three bits of wire together so that they are entertwined and make a point.
Take the the first foam teardrop (A) and glue half of one side. Take the second teardrop (B) and attach half of it to the glued half of (A). Glue the second half of (B) and attach the first half of (C) to it. Keep going till you have the second half of (E) which you glue and attach to the second half of (A).
Squeeze some of the glue between the pointy end of the teardrops and push the entertwined wire from the bottom section into it. Do the same with the looped wire, into the top join. Lay the balloon on it’s side so that it can dry securely.
Fill the base – the basket – with bird seed and hang in a tree.
As always, we were sent the crafting goodies by Craft Merrily as part of the Bostik Bloggers project. You can see more craft ideas by Bostik Bloggers here:
