Surprise Balls

When I finished making all the sewn paper streamers, I still had a good bit leftover so I decided to make surprise balls for the party favors. I don’t know if 14 years old would think “goody bags” were a bit juvenile (personally I’ll take a goody bag at any age) But I figured these surprise balls would be a pretty safe bet. My biggest thing about getting little trinkets and stuff for parties is you always have all this wasted plastic bags/packaging etc. To lessen that problem we went to a shop that has bins of toys and candy that they sell like 4 for $1.00 etc. Mix and match style. If I had more time I would try and get a little less junky trinkets to go inside, but these hopefully will appeal to his friends.

I started by cutting crepe paper streamers in half in long strips (12-20 inch or so). Then I took the first toy and carefully wrapped it in the streamer while trying to keep it in a slightly ball shape. Then when the streamer ended I grabbed a new color and the next trinket to wrap. Holding the next trinket up against the previously wrapped one I began to wrap the new streamer around both. Again always trying to keep a ball like shape.

When all the trinkets were wrapped and fully enclosed with streamers, I went around each bundle with one last streamer to try and get good ball shapes (some of mine are a bit off but that’s okay). Then I cut shorter lengths of streamer to create the rainbow effect you see on the finished ones. I used oval blank stickers to hold all the rainbow streamers together on the top and wrote “thanks for coming!” on each sticker.

I think unwrapping them will be quite fun and I am eager to make some for Christmas. I want to start finding fun interesting small goodies while thrift shopping, and save them for that very purpose. I also think it would be amazing to make a HUGE surprise ball leaving the streamers full sized to wrap it. You could do gifts that would work for everyone and then make a game of it by passing it around at a party and everyone takes a turn unwrapping a layer. Oh the possibilities, it would be cool for a white elephant style party too.

-Here is the surprise ball of my dreams which Sandra Juto got.
-Here is the place you can buy such ball…and here…and here…