Decorative Spheres

We've all seen decorative balls in stores and online. However, very few of us want to spend the money on them. Besides, it's so much more fulfilling to create your own especially with a spin on them, like I've done here.

Flipping through a magazine I came across mosaic tiled spheres and was really drawn to them.

Knowing that all you need is some small tiles and grout, I wanted to create them but with a twist.

So I immediately thought of crushed shells for this project. They have the shiny resemblance of the tiles but I really hadn't seen a sphere like this before.

Oddly with me being a crafter, one thing I don't like purchasing is Styrofoam balls. I mean, they are just unreasonably expensive. I guess it's because they are so useful, you can do so many things with them. But, I gave in with this project and picked up a package of 6 Styrofoam balls.

Now, I didn't just want to create one ball, I wanted a collaboration, if you will.

So, I needed another natural material that would compliment the shells. I already had a bag of green pebbles in my craft stash, and so I thought of another natural object that would complement both and I went with black sand.

These materials can be picked up in the floral section at Michael's, ironically right across from those pricey Styrofoam balls.

First, the balls needed to be painted so that in between the rocks, sand and shells, you would not see the plain white Styrofoam.

For the pebbles, I chose a metallic because the pebbles were a little dark and needed some reflection to lighten it up.

The shells naturally have a pinkish hue so I painted the ball pink.

As for the black sand, I had on hand a dark grey metallic spray paint so that worked perfectly.

Now for the adhesion.

The sand is not heavy so I simply applied spray adhesive to the Styrofoam and dipped into the sand. I gave it about 2 to 3 coats of glue and sand. I pierced a tool into the Styrofoam while painting for an easy hold.

Out of all three of them, the sand was the easiest and quickest.

As for the pebbles and shells, since they were heavy, I needed a thicker glue. I first tried a hot glue gun but the drawbacks are that the hot glue drys to quickly to apply the shells and pebbles, plus it melts the Styrofoam.

I used a glue that is fairly similar to E-600. It's thick enough to hold the material and dries fast but not too fast.

After applying the pebbles and shells, I went back to fill in tiny spaces that were peeking through.

I like their turnout, all I need now is a nice decorative bowl to place them into.

Linking to...

http://makingtheworldcuter.blogspot.com/