Christmas Ball With Yarn

Fuzzy Christmas balls are cute, but they tend to get hung up in the Christmas tree branches. This Christmas tree ball made with yarn has some of the texture of a fuzzy Christmas tree ball but won't get caught in those prickly branches. Plus, it is made with very simple supplies.

1. Yarn (color of your choice. I am using two greenish blue colors. You can do one color, but two colors makes a nice contrast).

2. Glass or plastic "fill it yourself" Christmas ball. These are often found in many craft/general stores around Christmas, but you can order them online. https://www.amazon.com/slp/diy-plastic-ornaments/u...

3. Pencil or other stick-type instrument for poking yarn into the ball

4. Cat brush*

5. Scissors

* You might could use a regular hair brush that has fine bristles or a wire brush

I cut off a little under 7 feet of yarn (around 2 meters) and doubled it up several times. The amount of yarn you use depends on the size of the ornament (mine is rather large) and the thickness of your yarn.

Taking my scissors, I cut through the doubled up portions so now I had a bunch of short strings. I kept these bundled together.

With the cat brush, I began brushing the yarn straight out to the ends. My goal was to get a fuzzy fluff instead of strands of yarn. I will warn you that this can take a bit. It probably took me 15 to 20 minutes to get the whole thing as fuzzy as I wanted.

Make sure to clean out the fuzz from the brush ever so often. You will use it, too.

Once that yarn was fluffy, I did the same thing with my other color of yarn. Now I had two different colors of fluff.

First I took the top off the clear ornament.

Taking some of the fluffy yarn, I began to poke it into the ornament using the pencil to help the yarn go to the bottom. I grabbed whichever color I felt like and continued to poke yarn inside the ornament until it was full.

If you decide that you don't like it and want to start over, use a pair of tweezers to carefully take the yarn out.

Once all the yarn has been put inside and the cap is put back on the ornament, the ornament is finished.

You could add in little charms/figures between the ornament walls and the yarn to give it some more personality, or you could paint on the outside of the glass/plastic. Other sewing notions like ribbon and rickrack could be added in as well. The possibilities with fill-it-yourself ornaments are rather endless.