Yarn Ball Wreath Tutorial

I have gotten completely addicted to Pinterest lately.  That is where I found this beauty.

I immediately thought of my sister, the knitter, and told her we were going to make some wreaths.  She brought over here baskets of yarns.  I bought a bazillion styrofoam balls, and we started.

First of all, this is NOT a simple craft.  It is extremely time consuming to wrap yarn around 30-40 styrofoam balls, and waiting to glue gun them all to the wreath form, AND it takes one heck of a lot of yarn to cover every part of the styrofoam.  So buy the cheapest and largest yarn rolls you can.  Luckily I had a few rolls from the dollar store, and got a few big, cheap skeins from Walmart, as well as 3-4 balls from my sisters stash.  I used a straight pin to “tack” the start of the yarn to my styrofoam, and begin wrapping.  I also pinned the end of the yarn and tucked in the tails.

I used a wire coat hanger for my wreath form.  I attached the balls to the form using U shaped paperclips.  I later used a glue gun to glue the U shapes into the balls, and prevent the balls from spinning around the wire hanger.

I just kept adding balls, and when I started gluing them, I really squeezed them together. This wreath took 40 balls of varying sizes.

And the final product…

Now for my sisters wreath, she wanted a larger wreath than a regular wire hanger could provide.  Again, I found an idea on Pinterest that could help.  Use a copper tube insulation wrapper as a wreath form.

I used duct tape to secure the ends and used a piece of wire hanger to make a hook.  I attached the balls to the wreath two ways.  First I used straightened paperclip wires, and I glued them into the styrofoam balls.  I then put glue on the other half of the wire, let it cool a bit (because hot glue melts and deteriorates this foam insulation form pretty easily, but after it is cooled, it does stick well) then inserted the other half of the wire into the insulation.  As more balls got attached, I hot glued them to each other too to give the wreath more firmness and rigidity.

I thought it would take a lot more balls to make this wreath and cover all of the grey foam, but it wasn’t too bad.

Here is hers.  This one took 53 balls of varying sizes.  She loves the more vibrant colours.  We just need to add some bamboo knitting needles to this one.  I love they way both of them turned out.