Tuesday, January 26, 2010

great balls o'fabric!

So this morning Rena and I were playing with my scraps. We just moved to Mississippi, and are working on getting our house in order, and that means decorating too. On our dining room table I have a big white bowl as a center piece. Before kids I would fill it with candy or candles, depending on my mood. After having the girls it went away for a while, but now that they are older it is back. But I have been agonizing on what to fill it with. Rocks? na. fake lemons? na. would look good, but they are fake, and would cost about $15. Real fruit? eh. would need replaced, and Rena would probably take a bite out of every piece then put it back. Yesterday at Target I was looking at those ball things they have, but a set of 3 was $20, and well, I just am not ready to commit to $20 worth of ball things. Then I remembered the pattern I had printed out from Grand Revival Designs Blog (She is wonderful, her fabric is wonderful) for a fabric ball.  So with Rena's help, I fished out a few scraps and got to work. There are 3 different sizes to the pattern, and I used the small two, because the largest is huge.These took about an hour or so to do all, and they used scraps. I stuffed them with leftover quilt batting, so they are a little lumpy. But, to make them smelly, I dabbed a little piece of the batting into liquid potpouri (apple cinnamon) before I stuffed them. So they smell wonderful, and are a bit of my personality instead of just "decorate balls".



So here they are. I didn't put potpouri in the penn state or the green one. I am happy with it, I like that they are something I made, so they are definately "me", and also that I didn't spend any money, which appeals to my frugal nature (yeah, I'm a cheapskate, plus that $20 could better be spent on more fabric.




and here is my helper posing with the balls. Silliness.




this is what the fabric was left over from, a diaper bag I just finished last week for a friend.

Ah, now off for some playdough time with Rena. She wants to make "cookies"....

3 comments:

  1. Cool!
    I think I'm a long way from putting decorative bowls back out for little hands. But those look fun to make and super easy...

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  2. yeah, Rena is almost 4, so I think I am in the safe zone for now! She likes to come over and "smell" them. I think the cloth balls are nice because they can't break.

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  3. Those are SUPER cute, as is your wee helper!

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