How to make a hot air balloon with a Styrofoam cup

On its own, a plain Styrofoam cup is not particularly appealing to look at. But, oh, the possibilities. For example, if you wrap the cup in twine as the bucket of a hot air balloon, it will be far interesting and appealing to take in.

For a breezy, beach theme, the project here is covered in natural twine and painted with white and seaside tones. Follow these color guidelines, or choose different shades to match a particular scheme. When it's all dry and ready for display, quickly find a spot for it on a table, desk, and dresser... before it goes up, up, and away.

-Styrofoam cup, standard
-Scissors
-Twine
-Protective covering for work surface
-Styrofoam sphere
-Chalk paint in seaside tone
-Bowl, small
-Paintbrush, medium
-Crafter’s acrylic paint in white
-2 dowels, 8 inches long and 1/16 inch diameter
-Blue and white paper
-Gold twine
-Hot glue gun
-Glue sticks

1. Trim off top of cup about one inch down from border.

2. Using a tiny dollop of hot glue, glue end of twine to rim of cup. Continue gluing and securing twine around rim and then around body of cup until reaching the bottom; snip end of twine and secure with glue. Make sure no white space is visible.

3. Place protective covering on work surface. Then set Styrofoam sphere on top.

4. Pour chalk paint into bowl and paint ball all over. Let dry.

5. Paint dowels with white paint and let dry.

6. Place blue paper evenly over white and cut a ½ inch strip. Then, holding strips horizontally and starting from right end, cut series of even triangles by angling scissor from bottom corner edge toward the left for first triangle. Then, for the next cut, start in from the edge and angle scissor toward the right top corner; keep repeating until 10 to 12 cuts are made to create 20 to 24 triangles (half white and half blue). Separate triangles by color.

7. On length of gold twine (start close to one end and don’t trim off piece from spool until later step), put small strip of hot glue and attach one white triangle at its base. Repeat with blue triangle, attaching just next to white one. Continue gluing and attaching, alternating blue and white triangles until all are attached to gold twine. Let dry.

8. Hot glue a strip of glue along lower half of one dowel; affix to inside of one side of cup angled out with line of cup. Repeat with other dowel, affixing it directly across from first.

9. Center sphere over dowels and lower down one side to poke base of sphere with dowel; repeat on other side with second dowel to secure.

10. Hot glue small dollops of glue onto face of sphere slightly above the center; attach gold twine with triangle flags in a loose swag design. Continue all around sphere; trim off twine where pieces meet and secure with hot glue.