Did you miss me?

I know all 3 of you had terrible withdraws without me.  I hope you all had a great Christmas break and are ready for some craftiness.  Here are a couple of things I have been working on.

Work shirt hat: Who knew hubby's old work shirt could be so cute!

 

I took a ton of pictures thinking I would do a little tutorial for you.  And I will, but after I finished there were quite a few things I thought I would do differently, making the pictures, well, all wrong.  So I will try to perfect this bad boy and get back to you with a tutorial.

Decorative balls:

Now I understand just why these are so expensive at the store.  Some of these just aren't worth the effort.  But I have a solution for that and the others are totally worth the effort.  I got this idea here.  V and Co. is a great place for ideas...check her out if haven't already.  Anywhoo, you can check out her tutorial too because it is a bit different than mine.

First let me start by showing you the one I am not in love with and tell you what you should do differently should you choose to move forward with this project.  I had everything I needed for this project.  Bonus right!  Wrong!  Do not use thin twine!  It will make you want to swear...but you wont because you are a nice girl...but trust me you will want to.  Do yourself a favor and go to the store and spend a few bucks on some thicker craft twine or jute...trust me.  Ok I am done...let's move on.  So I started with styrofoam balls and twine.  Curse you skinny twine.  And hot glue the twine to the ball...simple enough right.  Ok I am sure by now you have realized it wasn't quite that simple...but I am stubborn and I made it work. 

 

So the process is pretty simple.  Hot glue and wrap.  About 2/3rds of the way I decided to stop and start at the opposite end and meet where I left off.  I think this helped make the end look nicer but I am not sure it made that big of a difference.

Now onto the one I am in love with...

I had some clothesline and thought if I can do it with twine, why not do it with clothes line...why not indeed.  The clothes line variety is waay cute.  Same basic process.

Start with a knot

Hot glue said knot to ball

 

Glue over top opposite end of knot for clean look, trim and continue hot gluing and wrapping.

At this point tie another knot hot glue in place and push loose end into ball with bamboo skewer or something similar...

You can do this at the beginning too.  I just didn't think about it until the end.  Both ends looked really nice and clean so what ever floats your boat will work just fine!

Now the fun part SPRAY PAINT.

Nothing says fun like spray painting in the middle of winter in Utah.

Especially when you are trying to get your two year old to stay inside because all he has is socks on with no shoes...like I said, good times.

Get yourself a box and have at it.  The bamboo skewers came in handy once again.  And this gave me another idea I will show you later!

Let them dry and then bring them in and make them "a lovely addition to your ball collection" like my husband said.

I think this is my favorite...I love the silver. Lovely.

 

Green, Lovely.

All together...Lovely.  The twine variety is just ok, but the rest, Lovely.

This vase was sad and empty having recently lost it's cute younger brother due to a tragic rowdy boy mishap, yes that was a very sad day around here.  And I just didn't love what was in there anymore so I didn't replace it after Christmas so there it sat...sad, empty and lonely.  Until...balls on a stick.  It just makes me happy.  It is very Dr. Suessesque. 

And there you have it, some stuff I have been working on.  Now it's your turn...what are you working on...I'd love to see it.