DIY Decorative Balls

I love how one thing leads to another. This is how this project came about...

Once upon a day I was bored...story of my life. I know I should enjoy it and that one day I'll be looking back and wishing I could just be bored. So, as I was wandering through Hobby Lobby and trying to kill time, I found the bird cages. I think they are so dang cute! I felt like Agnes off of Despicable Me...ya know the cute little girl that sees the big stuffed animal and says "It's just so fluffy!" That was me standing in front of the bird cages. Freaking out at how cute they were. Now I don't need a bird cage. I have nowhere to put one, but for 50% off I couldn't turn it down. Yep I bought it! I haven't had one single regret since. Back to my point. I bought the bird cage, so I had to have something to go inside it! That's the one thing leading to another point I was trying to make.

My mom has this cute cage thing that she bought and put some cute decorative balls inside. I didn't want to go and buy any since..

1. I'm a cheap skate

2.  I like doing things myself.

I thought about what I could use around the house to make mine. After much brainstorming I finally came up with macaroni noodles and newspaper! Here's a little photo shoot of how they turned out.

TaDa! I think they are so fun! Let me introduce you to each friend and I'll tell you how I made them. It's really not rocket science.

These are my macaroni friends. Here's what I did for coloring the noodles. I googled dyeing macaroni noodles, and this is what it I was told to do and what I did...

1. Picked out my noodles

2. Poured enough vinegar in a plastic sandwich bag to coat the macaroni.

3. Chose my food coloring color and mixed it with the vinegar in my plastic baggy.

4. Dumped the macaroni in the bag, *make sure to seal it*, and started mixing.

*Make sure all the noodles get coated. The longer you leave the noodles in the back the darker the color will be. I mixed until I had them the color I wanted.

5. Drain the colored water, then spread the noodles out on a paper towel to dry.

While I was waiting for them to dry I painted two 3 inch Styrofoam balls. One red and the other purple. I didn't want white showing through of course.

After that was done and everything was dry, I started gluing. I'm sure it would have been easier if I had spray adhesive, but I didn't so I just used my trusty glue gun.

For the red ball: I just spread glue all over in a little section then rolled the ball in the sprinkle noodles. See what I mean...not rocket science. A kid could do this and be entertained for awhile.

For the purple ball: I started at the top and glued the macaroni on in a spiral all the way around. Here's another look at that one.

You can't see the true purple of it. But it's really cute.

Now for my big newspaper friend:

This was so much fun! Do you remember in elementary school when you would take tissue paper and roll it around your eraser, dip it in glue and make art! I do!! I loved it! Those were the good old days....sigh!

That's what I did here. I traced circles onto newspaper. Not just any old piece of newspaper though. I made sure it was only black and white...no color. Why? I don't know. I just wanted it all black and white!

Now we could have one of those contests were we all sit and guess how many newspaper circles it took to make this ball, but I won't do that to you. Are you ready to hear this.....

Make your guess....

The grand total was.....

309!

I didn't expect that when I started, but it actually went really fast. I think this one is my favorite I started with a 4 inch styrofoam ball, but I think it is like 6 inches now!

Now for the last friend:

I had found these little styrofoam balls at the dollar store. These little guys crack me up. They are so staticy! They wanted to stick to anything and everything.

Little story on these little guys. I was gluing away and picked up this little one that was all deformed. I just about tossed it to the side because it wasn't "pretty enough" but stopped and realized what I was doing. I thought, "how sad!", I wouldn't want to be thrown to the side because someone thought I wasn't "pretty enough" or "smart enough" or "whatever enough". So to remind myself to not judge anyone and to accept people for their "differences" I glued that little guy on. Now he can feel special and wanted just like all the others and it doesn't matter if he looks a little different. That's what it's all about.

This was a 4 inch ball as well. I glued the balls on in a spiral like I did with the purple macaroni ball.

Here they all are as happy as can be like little love birds in a birds nest...or cage...in this case!

 

Here it is with my chalkboard and Prince Flynn!