Spoonful of Imagination

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DIY Christmas Ball Ornaments

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DIY_ornament_suppliesDoes your Christmas tree have a theme? My Christmas tree’s theme is “kid creations”. I am a sucker for all the cute handmade and picture ornaments. My kids paint or create several ornaments every year, and they are my favorite ones on my tree. If you saw my reindeer hands post, you got some tips on how to craft this season (and survive) with little ones. Here is a craft you can try out those tips. My Christmas Ball Ornaments are easy enough for a toddler to make.

Start with some ball-shaped ornaments. I used glass ornaments, but I would think plastic would work really well with this method as well. I cut up a bunch of tissue paper into about 1″ long squares or rectangles. I gave my kids some glue and showed them how you put a dab of glue on the ornament and then stick a piece of tissue paper on it, and let them run with the craft.

Making_ornamentsDIY_Paper_mache_ornamenttoddler_ornament_craftA full collage of paper tissues over lapping one another is ideal, but my J simply wanted to create a row of paper around his ornament and be done. That works too. Reagan used a Q-tip to apply the glue on her ornaments which was easier for her little hands than to squeeze the glue bottle like the boys opted to do.

Once my kids said they were done with their ornaments, I applied glue all over the outside of the tissue paper. This step pushed down all those fly away pieces sticking up and got them to lay flat on the ornament.

tissue_paper_ornamentsOur ornaments were then wet, so I quickly slipped in some string and hung them up to dry. This prevented any part of the ornament getting ruined and not drying onto another surface.

drying__crafted_ornamentsOnce the ornaments were dry, I sprayed them with my favorite clear shiny gloss spray from Rust-oleum. I love the shine that this spray added to our ornaments.

DIY_shiny_ornamentsThe last step was to add some string, ribbon, or embellishments to make them unique and special to you. I added bells and feathers and even a little star with the date to one of ours. Note: I did this step without the kids help. 🙂

DIY_christmas_ball_ornamentsOur ornaments were then done and ready to be given as gifts or hung on the tree! Soooo have you gotten to craft or make any presents yet? I hope you are able to unplug, relish in the normal simple things, and enjoy this season.

Happy week friends!!

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Crafts Delivered to Your Door

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Have you ever wanted to attempt a craft from Spoonful of Imagination but needed a little extra nudge?

Have you seen promotions for Spoonful Lab but have been too far away to attend?

Are you looking for a community of people to encourage and challenge your creative potential?

I’m excited to let you know we have created a solution for you.

Coming in early 2014 we will be launching a special members only portion of Spoonful of Imagination called Spoonful Tribe. You don’t have to wait for 2014 to start participating though! Today to celebrate this new chapter of Spoonful we are offering a limited quantity soft launch.

Last Thursday at my Handmade Christmas Spoonful Lab, the ladies that came created these beautiful Winter Wreaths and Holiday Ornaments. I set aside 12 sets of these craft supplies and you can sign up today to have them delivered right to your door!

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Wouldn’t you love a fun craft to do during the holidays? By signing up, I will ship all the supplies directly to you which will include a secret code to a special video tutorial where I teach you how to do your crafts. Coming in 2014 will be more crafts, goodies, store discounts, and members only privileges for Spoonful Tribe members. Each month you will receive a new craft. You can purchase a Spoonful Box for you or you can request multiples to host your own craft night party!

The only catch is that once my supplies are sold out, you will have to wait for the next month’s offering. Don’t wait to join in!

Once we announce our official launch we will have different levels of membership available. For today’s special you can reserve your Spoonful Tribe Box for $20. Remember, when 12 orders come in, the offer will be closed for the month.

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This is a one month offer with no further obligations!

Thank you to many of you for helping to contribute and inspire this idea. We’ve heard your feedback and I’m hoping this will be a special way for us to continue to expand the Spoonful of Imagination community and connect more with each other!

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DIY Rope Balls

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Today, I have an easy DIY rope ball craft for you.  I created these pretty rope balls from Dollar Tree supplies  At the end of this post, I will show you a simple change you can do to make the same type of ball have another use.

These balls were inspired from my Savannah girl’s weekend.  Do you remember seeing this picture from my trip?

While we were out shopping, I fell in love with these rustic rope balls.  They were about $8.00 a piece and I knew I could make them cheaper.  I finally attempted to make them, and I love my product.  Here is how you can do it too.

I went to my Dollar Tree and bought yellow boot laces, two packs of clothes line rope, and a package of styrofoam balls.  I ended up also getting a package of styrofoam balls from Hobby Lobby to have a slightly larger size.  Note:  I love the clothes line rope!  It is perfect Christmas colors to help decorate my house for Christmas.  Plus, there was so much of it for only costing $1.00 each!  Score!

I started by hot gluing the edge of my rope onto a styrofoam ball.  My technique was to add a strip of glue and then lay the rope on top about two inches at a time, going down one side of the ball.  I simply wrapped my ball with glue and rope going around and around to create the look of swirls.

Once my “swirls ” of glue and rope were getting smaller as I was getting near to closing the side off, I simply cut the string, added a big glob of glue, and tried to stick the edge of my rope into the glob of glue (in order to cover up any styrofoam from showing).

After you have one side complete, add a little glue at the top and start wrapping down the ball again (until the ball is totally covered up).  I made a lot of these, but I still had a ton of rope left over!

I think they came out so cute, and yet were so easy to make!  They cost so much less than their store look a likes.

My kids are enjoying throwing them all over the house.  It is nice to have a Christmas decor item that is not “breakable” or off-limits.  They can throw these and they wont break or get damaged.  Unless they throw them at something that might break 🙂.  I love red and green and can see myself keeping them out all year-long and not limiting them to just Christmas.

Although they are a rustic/child safe decor item, you can dress them up and display them in a fancier planter for a more elegant look.

My son Caleb told me this planter looked dirty as I put it in my shopping cart this week.  Oh don’t you love a child’s practical thinking!?  It does look dirty, but I love it!  I think these rope balls would even look good in a glass vase like I did with my red ornaments on my Christmas mantle.

Since I had so much left over rope, I decided to get some more styrofoam balls and twist this idea into something that would make great Christmas gifts!  I made some rope ornaments!  My sister Joni, came over and we sat, talked, watched White Christmas, glued rope ornaments, and almost peed in our pants from laughing so hard.  It was a fun night!

The only difference really from just making the rope balls is adding a piece of string, rope, or ribbon first, so there is a way for your ornament to hang on the tree.  We started by cutting a small piece of rope and gluing both of the ends onto the ball.

We then did the gluing technique to add two strips of rope around the ball.  After we had our rope surrounded by the clothes line rope, we simply went down wrapping one side just like we did the ball.  From there, you complete the ornament just like you did the ball.

They look amazing just plain, or adding a simple string bow is cute too!  I think they make such a cute little addition to any gift and look great on the tree!  They are so simple, yet the rows ans rows of string add a fun texture to a rather normal style of a round ball ornament.

Do you add a personal touch to gifts?  Are you making any gifts this year?

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

 

 

 

 

Linked up to:  Shaken Together, Inspired by Charm, Funky Junk Interiors, Shanty 2 Chic, Miss Information, The Frugal Homemaker, DIY Show Off