There is something cozy about a bowl of yarn. It adds warm texture to your living space.
If you’ve ever made a yarn ball you know it takes a lot of yarn (and a lot of mindless looping.) This is such a simple hack that I’ve used for many years. It’s also a great way to use up the last remaining parts of a skein.
Start with a styrofoam ball. Just to give me an extra hand, I usually hot glue a little patch to get me started.
Fill up all the blank spaces and you’re done. Again, I put a little dollop of glue at the end, place my yarn over it then cut a little tail and tuck it into one of the laps of yarn. The hot glue will keep it in place and not unravel.
Choose some complimentary colors but with varying textures. Use Christmas colors or the colors of your home. These add warmth and dimension to your room, easily and inexpensively.
Doggoneit! This wreath. This huge wreath with it’s beautiful ornaments…it was going to be a good project. I saved it for the middle. 22″ x 17″ of Christmas cheer.
However…
I bought a huge tube of ornaments. Then, for good measure, I also bought a smaller tube of ornament balls. But this thing requires six MILLION ornaments! ugh.
So IF you were making this, you simply lay your wreath down and start hot gluing your ornaments on, using the table as your ‘wall back’.
Hopefully this is a popular ornament color that they’ll bring back again next year. COVID and Crafting is difficult sometimes!
I guess I will pack it all away and finish it next year?? Had I known I would be short this much (guesstimating was never my strong suit – but I SERIOUSLY had a LOT of ornaments to work with), I might have worked in other things like pinecombs or yarn balls or something.
Nothing to sweat over now though. That baby is born and I’m going to have to bow to defeat. What a typical 2020 wreath, huh??!
Instead, I’ll show you our 2020 glass ornaments we’ve collected so far. I say ‘so far‘, but I think we’re probably done for the year. It will be fun to collect more and more every year until we have a dedicated Christmas tree just for them. As I mentioned before, these are like collecting charms for a charm bracelet. Each ornament has meaning and ‘spoke’ to us.
I ordered the masked Santa online to commemorate 2020. When I opened the package his weird blue eyes freaked me out a bit. Again…how appropriate, right?
EEEEEK.
Crafts are fun and challenging and you do everything you can to overcome the obstacles along the way. But sometimes, you lay the project aside and say, ‘I’m done. For now anyway. Maybe later.’ I’ll be first in the store when the Christmas decorations start coming out in 2021. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find similar colors.
Have you ever headed into a project and quickly thought: “Excuse me, ma’am. Have we met?!” This was that project for me. My self-awareness was off kilter the day I chose this particular craft project.
WHAT possessed me to push nine gazillion sequins into a styrofoam ball with nine gazillion pins?! However…I really like it.
What’s really cute of me, is that I bought a six-pack of styrofoam balls to make SIX!*doubles over laughing* I think you can guess how many I made. If you guessed one, you’d be correct. If you guessed 1/4th of one, you probably know me best.
I was surprised to find out that they make pins specifically for sequins. They are a bit shorter than regular pins and they were hanging right next to the sequins in the sewing section of the store.
A couple of hints: separate out the sequins and the pins into bowls. They’re much easier to grab that way. You’d probably benefit from a thimble, which I didn’t want to dig up so I used the tail of my shirt. (Do whatcha gotta do.)
I started at one end and started spiraling outward. I wasn’t overly concerned with the sequins being in a continuous pattern. I don’t really think that’s necessary. Just make sure each sequin overlaps.
As I finished up, I left a small space open where I put a dollop of hot glue. I then put a pin through one sequin and pushed it into my looped, black velvet ribbon and pushed it all into the spot with the hot glue. The ribbon serves as a hanger or is just decorative.
I love the look. It’s very shiny and elegant. I imagined putting a nametag through the push pin and ribbon to set at each place setting. They can hang on a tree or a doorknob or cabinet pull or….on and on.
As I was debating with myself and encouraging myself to keep going (-ha!), I thought about how this would make a good project for a child who was diligent and dedicated. As long as they’re careful and understand overlapping each sequin to cover the white styrofoam, I think they’d feel very confident and proud of the end result. So parents – think about semi-supervising this project and letting your focused kid dig into it.
I included in this place setting a vase of white hydrangea (you know I can’t get enough hydrangea in my life.) I filled a vase with a bag of fresh cranberries then covered them with water. It’s a nice pop of color on a tablescape. They also last quite a long time if you change out the water occasionally, which will turn pinkish-red so it’ll need a refresh. When the hydrangeas are gone, I’ll drop a little votive candle into the top of the cranberries and water.
Hanging separately or with many others grouped together, when the light hits the metal and the sequins on these sequined ornaments, it’s very pretty and magical. Save a few of those sequins for sprinkling around.
I proudly present to you my ONE sequin ball. I didn’t think I’d finish it at times, but am so glad I stuck to it. When the season is over I will be locking it in our fireproof safety deposit box!
*said only partly facetiously*
What do you think? Do you have what it takes? (For the record, what it takes are calloused fingers and upper arm strength!) These would be lovely at a wedding in the chosen colors. This is where you can be a brideszilla, though, and delegate others to do the work!
In an attempt to entertain myself during the much-slower-than-normal 2020 holidays, I decided to clear out my burgeoning Pinterest boards. Many of the craft ideas have been hanging around for a number of years so why not choose 2020 for some anti-COVID creating.
I’m starting with this set of Swiss Alp mountains. They would be cute on a bookshelf or as a table winterscape. I’m not sure where these will land, but I had fun turning one 4 ft piece of 1×10 pine wood into something modern and wintery. It’s nice when ‘Christmas decorations’ can be spread out to include all of winter. And these Swedish babes fit that bill.
Here’s how we did it…
Scott bought one piece of pine wood and cut out the mountains to 4 different heights: 10.5″, 8.5″, 6.5″ and 4.5″ tall. He set his miter saw at 24 degrees and after cutting both sides of the mountain, the peak ends up at a 48 degree angle. Yeah, yeah…that’s a lot of math. The exact angle isn’t as important as the consistency for each mountain so that they each end up with the same angle but with different heights. All those mountains out of one board!
I then used some Provincial wood stain (that we had on hand) to stain a few of the mountains. You could use any stain color you desire. As I was painting the others I was imagining doing another set of mountains that were all stained with just painted tops. That would look great too.
All you need are those cheap little bottles of paint from your craft store. Again…trying to use a lot of what I already had on hand…I used some black and white wall paint. It was definitely overkill to use gallons of paint – but it’s what I had!
When I have a project that requires multiple layers of paint with drying in between, I cut off a bit of Saran Wrap, fold it in half and just tuck my wet brushes inside. It’s a temporary hold so they don’t dry out.
This is an optional step and, honestly, one I skipped after the first mountain. Drawing out the snowcap seemed like a good idea, but you don’t really stick to the lines anyway so I skipped this step for the rest.
For the dotted mountain I used an old pencil I keep around for this reason. It has a few coats of paint on it already so the tip is even rounder.
I took a quick video showing the differently sized dots. The more paint on your pencil, obviously, the bigger the dot. The longer you hold the pencil down, the bigger the dot…
This was a pretty simple project at a low cost. Always a good thing! The colors and size are completely up to you. I realize it might be a little frustrating for some of you reading this if you don’t have access to a miter saw. If you’re really interested in completing this project, let’s talk. We can cut some wood for you and ship it at a fairly low price, I’m sure. Let’s talk.
I added some faux snow (that’s just a really enjoyable phrase to say!). The faux snow will make an appearance in a different project that’s coming up soon.
So what do you think??? Project 1 of 20 complete. Not sure I’ll get through them all between Thanksgiving week and Christmas week but I plan on having fun while trying!
Thanks for reading this far! If you decide to complete this project, please please please tag me on social media or send me a picture. I want to enjoy it with you!
Now… I need a cup of Swiss hot chocolate. How about you?
Resilience Reimagined 