An ever growing collection of projects which I conceived. Should anything posted here bear a resemblance to anything posted or written about elsewhere, the collective consciousness is the source and I am one of the conduits. Which is my way of saying that I did not nor would not knowingly claim “credit” for somebody else’s idea.

Today, I share a project that is not only crafty, but also nifty and thrifty. Our little bundle of joyous energy recently turned one year old. Given my love for a good party, I went all out which meant that I needed some party favors. Having already enjoyed the first year festivities of some of my son’s friends, I realized that this party favor business is something special. While there are many factors to consider that did not even occur to me, I was focused on the following: our offering must be something that we would like to receive with respect to quality, origin, and usefulness. After much deliberation, I settled on making felted rattle balls. Here’s how I did it:

I got some whiffle balls from The Sports Authority, some very small pebbles from the floral department at Michaels, and some wool roving from our local fiber arts shop. I stuck several pebbles through the holes in each ball and then wrapped them in the wet/soapy wool. Then, I followed the directions for making dryer balls that I read in this post. I ended up doing the last step twice to be sure that there were no bald spots. Now we’ve got a whole bunch of rattle balls (because, of course I made far more balls than we needed.) I just love it when my craftiness yields fun far into the future!