January 1 - Anastasya's Butterfly

Butterflies can't see their wings. They can't see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well.

~ Naya Rivera

Anastasya Sokol is a Russian balloon artist who does amazing large delivery pieces and I feel so fortunate to have found her by complete accident while browsing videos. Exploring a link referenced in a video to a Russian website (link), the images were fantastic so I used Google translate to navigate.  I find it interesting that in many ways some countries have a distinct style to their balloon art - and these are no exception.  She has a five videos that I see - and I couldn't help but purchase a couple to try.

The videos themselves are delivered in a unique way by infobiz in order to protect the intellectual property.  I was initially annoyed that I would have to keep track of an unlock key, but the system installs and works well as you only have to enter it once for one video - the user interface is intuitive, the only struggle is I have no idea what video is what.

Anastasya explains very clearly how to build these.   Even not speaking Russian I was able to follow her - though I had to pay close attention to her fingers so as not to miss things.

The flower was included in the demonstration and uses a weave pattern similar to the butterfly, I've never built a flower this big and beautiful, it uses a lot of balloons - but it's quite quick and certainly worth the effort.