Here is one of the projects I made as part of my kitchen window makeover. I really wanted a topiary to sit on one of the shelves. I was hoping to find a styrofoam ball at the dollar store, but all they had were square ones or the wrong size.
I was determined to keep this project really cheap, so I bought a bag of balloons, blew one up to size and wrapped it is yarn-covered glue. I let it sit for a day until it was dry and solid, and then I popped the balloon. You can see it pictured below.
For this fund little topiary, I used my yarn ball, an unsharpened pencil, a flower pot that I painted gray, and lots of red felt. I spent a dollar on the pack of balloons, so this project was basically free, because I had the other supplies (my mom gave me the pot).
I was skeptical about using the yarn ball. I was really worried that it would collapse. But, I used lots of glue, and about a month later, it is still sitting strong. :) To cover the ball, I cut up a bunch of red felt strips and hot glued them on. I stuck the end of a pencil inside one of the holes in the ball and hot glued. Then, I secured it by gluing felt to the pencil and anchoring it down. Surprisingly, it was a pretty tight hold.
I was going to cut a bunch of circles and make little pom-poms to cover the whole thing, but I changed my mind really fast, knowing that it would take way too long! I decided to use squares instead. I just eye-balled them, so they are about 1" squares.
I ended up using all of the red felt that I had leftover, and had barely enough. I just love when this happens. Anyways, fold the square in half two times and place a dab of hot glue in the center.
I started hot gluing the pieces to the ball side opposite the pencil. I turned them random directions so it didn't look uniform.
I secured the pencil a little bit better with more felt as I got closer to getting the ball completely covered with felt squares.
I wrapped some burlap around the pencil several times to add some fun texture and color. I wrapped it a couple of times to make the base look thicker.
I filled the base with rocks that I bought at the dollar store...oops, I guess I spent $2 for this project. Still awesome though, right?
Here it is all covered and almost finished. There is just one more finished touch...
