Indoor Snowballs

A Facebook friend of mine posted a picture of a bucket of snowballs she had bought for her family.  (If you Google search Bucket of Snowballs, you can see what I mean!)

I saw her picture and instantly knew that my family would have a lot of fun with something like that.  So of course I started thinking, “How can I make that?”  The snowballs kind of had me stumped though because I wanted something light that could be thrown at anyone at no risk of injury, but I’m not much of a sewer and I didn’t know how to sew spheres and didn’t have time to learn right then, so . . .  I kind of put that project in a dark recess of my brain to be recalled at some future time.

Then, one day, a few weeks before Christmas, I was in a dollar store (busy place just before Christmas!) and I saw some small plush baseballs.  My mind instantly recalled the recessed snowball project and I knew that these baseballs were perfect.  I emptied the shelf – all eight of them.  Then I went to the isle of containers and found a suitable snowball bucket.
Then there were only two things left to do:
– spend about five minutes total snipping the red stitching off the balls so they wouldn’t look like baseballs anymore
– painting the word Snowballs on my bucket.  I just free-handed it and painted it on with regular craft paint.

And this is what it ended up like . . .

Oh, I painted a few snowflakes on as well.
Doesn’t look like a baseball anymore – snowball all the way!!!
Vinyl lettering would have been perfect for labeling the bucket too.
I gave this to my family on Christmas Eve.  No one needed pajamas this year so we opened this instead.  I had taken Lee (my 14 year old) into my confidence and she wrapped all the snowballs individually for me.  So on Christmas Eve, dad got to unwrap the bucket and the rest of us opened snowballs (except Mac – she opened her new pair of pink Princess slippers!).  So we were all armed and he wasn’t!!!  Dad got bombarded with snowballs and of course a big snowball fight followed.  We even used the wadded up wrapping paper if we didn’t have a snowball nearby.
Here’s a Christmas morning photo – can you find the bucket?  Dad seems to get pelted a lot!!!We’re still having lots of fun with them – the novelty hasn’t worn off at all.  Snowballs are always flying by.  And I’m happy to report we haven’t had a single human injury – the bird did get knocked off someone’s shoulder once, but it fluttered to the ground with no problem!  I’m thinking that I’m gonna have to be on the lookout for more plush baseballs – I think we need another bucket in the family room!!!
Signature Overlay 1

 

 

All-Season Frame

Having a craft hanging around that works for all seasons is a great plan!
I made this one at Shauna’s craft class and my daughter made the blue one.  I stenciled some words onto mine, inspired by something similar I’d seen in a Country Sampler magazine a few years back.
You can get these wooden frames and insert pieces from Micheals.
Anyway, to make an all-season frame, I decided to attach my snowflake with velcro.
Then I chose a few other shapes to use for the rest of the year.  The flower covers spring and summer.  Simply attach a piece of velcro to each backside.  I suggest doing the snowflake first as it’s the most awkward shape to fit.

I especially love it when it’s time to take out the snowflake and insert the flower! Oh happy day, the long winter is over!

Isn’t that just so “happy”?
After painting these inserts, I sanded them and etched them with a blade before staining them.
And Autumn is pretty cute too – this one always seems to be on display for the shortest amount of time.
The biggest problem with this craft is remembering where I stored the out-of-season pieces.  If I was smart, I’d velcro them to the back of the frame!