Felted ball garlands

As promised way back here...

So when I saw something like this on Pinterest, and having just come from my local yarn store, where they have a lovely selection of wool roving for all your felt-balling needs, it became my life's ambition to make many many felted wool balls, in all the colors, and string them together attractively, as gifts for my girls.  Pinterest and the Yarn Shop Owner provided various tutorials for making said balls, and none of them seemed very hard.  That should have been my first clue.  I was under something of a deadline, so I didn't have a lot of time to experiment.  I needed success the first time round, and lots of it.

Then I made one.  

Ball, not garland.  

It's pretty cute but I realized this was going to take more time than I currently had.  So I wandered over to Etsy.  I found I could buy garlands already made up!  But that's not a very hand-made gift, when all your hand does is click on Add-to-Cart.  But then I found a whole tribe of people who have apparently mastered the felt ball art, and would happily sell me any number of loose balls in any color I desired.

When my "supplies" arrived, I promptly got to work, stringing ball garlands, leaving enough space to clip on photos, ephemera and anything else the recipient might like.  3 different color schemes for 3 different girls.  Here are some of the results!

Then it came time to figure out how to ship these without them ending up a tangled mess.  This is the method I decided on.  Easy to tuck into a large padded envelope and neatly organized and secured for the journey!

This was a fun way to "use up" some embellishments, and I left enough clothespin clips empty so the girls can add their own ephemera to the garland.

 I still plan to learn to make my own felt balls.  Since I still have a large bag of wool roving that may or may not have been flung into a corner at some point.  Or maybe Pinterest will show me something else I can try with roving.  Pinterest is handy that way.

Thanks for stopping by again today!