Lately nearly every place we go to is adorned with Christmas decorations – poinsettias, wreaths, garlands, lights, santas, snowmen, and yes, styrofoam balls covered in glitter, ribbon, rhinestones and so on.
At our local Gymboree, where my son and I attend twice-a-week lessons (which he LOVES by the way), there are lots of the homemade variety, of balls in different sizes, simply decorated with multicoloured glitter. Many had impressively had Gymbo the clown too.
My daughter thought that these balls were just “beautiful!”, and asked if we could make some at home too. As Christmas is coming, I thought I’d don my SuperMom cape for the holidays and get down to some serious Yuletide styro-ball-ornament making. You have to love the styro ball. Its cheap, easy to find, and easy to decorate for little kids.
Heres’ how to do it:
Styrofoam Ball Ornaments
*styrofoam ball (about 2 1/2 inches)
*glue
*paper clips
*paint
*craft items – glitter, jewels, ribbons, etc
Put some glue on one end of a paper clip and push it into ball, this will be the hanger. Paint and decorate as desired.
You can also paint with glitter paint, glue on “jewels” & tiny shells and ribbons as below.
Ribbon Covered Balls
* Styrofoam ball
* 1/4″ satin ribbon
* Dressmaker pins
* Christmas cording
* Ribbon for a bow
* Pearls, beads or other decorations
* Hot glue
Take a large pen and poke a hole all the way through the center of the ball. Secure the ribbon with dressmaker pins at one end and basically just wrap the ribbon around the ball through the hole. At each end of the hole, secure the ribbon with a pin. Then after you cover the whole ball, you can push some pretty cording through the hole and tie a knot at the bottom and make a bow or something like that at the top for a loop to hang on tree. You can also use a hot glue gun to add other baubles like beads, pearls or small crystals.
[tags]Christmas, Holidays, Christmas ornaments, styrofoam balls[/tags]
Originally posted on December 7, 2006 @ 7:24 pm
