From ball of string to string bauble

Hello, Eleanor here, with a messy but fun Christmas project you might enjoy with your children over the half term holiday.

 

You will need:

(it was a pack of three)

A cheap bag of balloons, blown up to tennis ball size and firmly knotted.

Pour about half a Cup into a bowl and mix well with about a third of a Cup of water.

Find the end of your ball of string (if you don't do this first, it's a devil of a job to find it when the whole ball is glue soaked, guess how I know...) and dunk the whole ball into the glue bowl.

Squish it to help it soak up the glue, and when it is thoroughly wet, leaving the ball in the bowl, start winding the string firmly around the balloon. I started at the knot end with a little wind around (which later becomes a hook). Keep going until you like the look of it, and then snip your string.

 

(This one isn't actually still wet, because I didn't want to get glue all over the camera, but you get the idea.)

Place somewhere to dry for a while, mine only took a couple of hours because I put them near the boiler, but be sure to leave it until it is completely hard and crisp.

Then take a pin, and gently pierce your balloon somewhere up near the knot, where tension is least.

You will need to help the rubber away from the hard string in places by prodding through the gaps with a blunt point (it's fun, makes a crunchy sort of noise), and then withdraw the balloon by pulling from the knot end.

Hang it on its own, or in a group, you can leave it plain, or paint it, glitter it, whatever suits your colour scheme - I painted this one white for now. Just mind your paint is not a very wet one. Acrylic is fine, but sponge it on and dry well again. Spray paint is useful, but not for the children.

It's almost the end of October, and so I made one for Halloween. I wound the end of the string around a fine plastic straw (remember milk straws?).

When it's dry, slide the coils from the straw, curl them round,

And paint it orange and green!

(Those are our butternut squash, like Caz, we love it.)

See you at the end of the week with Simple Things. Do join us!

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Debbie Roberts]

Oh I love these, they look really effective. Never would have thought of using string for decorations.

[Miriam]

These are gorgeous, definitely my next messy project! Thanks Eleanor.

[Suzanne]

Wow these are great! I can definitely see us making them here. Your little pumpkin one looks so cute too.

[jayne]

I made simular for Christmas when i was a teen just added Glitter to the PVA glue.
Thanks for bringing back this memory :)

[Lynne V]

With half-term coming up that is a really good idea to while away a few hours.