Decorative Balls - Christy style!

This is something I've been working on in my spare moment over the past week.  I am super happy with the outcome - better then what I had anticipated, and a hell of a lot cheaper then what is available in the stores.  And let's be honest, the ones in the store are nowhere near as funky as these!!

  Although this is a new addition to my dining room table, I actually made it to show at the class/demonstration I am doing this upcoming week on how to decorate your house on the cheap, or using what you have at home, at an activity my church is putting on.  I googled "homemade deco balls" and sifted through tonnes of great ideas, and this is what I put together.

Took the piccie late at night on my phone (lazy), so you can't see the full effect of how amazing it is.  BUT here is all the balls laid out so you can see all the different colours and textures and sizes.

They were all easy to make.  Some fiddlier then others, but only because I kept getting my fingers stuck in the glue!  I used a mixtures of polystyrene & plastic golf balls to make all of my pretty balls.  Here's what I did:

• Thumbtack balls - you just go around once through the centre of the ball, and then continue on overlapping each layer slowly.  Just keep going around and around until everything is covered.  I found it necessary to put a little hot glue under the last few tacks to keep it all secure.  Then I spray painted them.  That took forever!  They needed about 3 coats on each side.  I think they sat outside being sprayed for about 4 days!
• Lentil balls - just bought a few bags of 'soup mix' lentils and picked out the two shapes and sizes I liked best.  Luckily one of the beans was already green so I just hot glued them down and was happy with the colour and left them.  Nice and easy!  The other I just glued down and then spray painted white.  After that dried I watered down some green paint and went over them - which gives it a rustic look.  Really happy with those balls.
• String balls - the fiddliest of all.  I just did a knot in the string and used a pin to secure it at the beginning.  Then just put a little bit of hot glue down and just keep going around and around.  Super annoying if you have fat fingers like me!
• Fabric balls - I did a couple of different techniques with these.  Some I cut up little chunks and decoupaged them with white glue.  Others I cut strips and used pins to secure the ends.

I love how they turned out.  Now I just need to demonstrate all these techniques to these women along with all the other things I want to demonstrate in 10 mins.  Should be interesting.....

One last thing.  A good friend of mine has launched her store in Madeit.  Pop on over and check out her amazing talent!