When designing June’s Playroom (see the whole room reveal here), I had this nice bright window to do something with. I didn’t want curtains because I wanted to keep the nice natural light coming in and it already had blinds. But I didn’t want to leave it naked… that wouldn’t look nice at all.

That’s when I came up with the idea to make a garland of yarn balls.  I’ve seen people use them as light fixtures, and decorative accessories, and since my little girl LOVES balls, I knew this would be the perfect alternative to curtains. 

So here’s the really easy method I used to make this adorable garland for June’s room. 

I wanted my balls to be perfect orbs, so after tying them off, I used a small elastic rubber band to tie off the top too so that they wouldn’t be lopsided due to not being inflated all the way.

Now you are going to mix your water and glue in an approximately 1 part water 2 parts glue ratio. Don’t bother measuring it… that would be way too messy. Just pour it into a bowl and then mix it really well. If you don’t mix all the water into the glue evenly, you are going to have balls that collapse when you pop the balloon because they didn’t get stiff. Once your mixture is combines, dunk your balloons fully into it. shake them off a bit but make sure the strings are completely soaked in it.

Now hang them to dry for 24 hours or until completely, totally dry and stiff. I hung them on my shower curtain rod with tons of newspaper under them for drips.

If, for any reason, some of your string doesn’t feel stiff enough, go ahead and repeat the dunking process with the glue and water and be patient all over again and let them dry.

Now that they are dry you get to pop them!

The balloon might slowly deflate, or it may pop into several pieces. Carefully take it out through the holes in your ball. You can always enlarge a hole and then re-position the string once you are done removing it.

Now you have some super cute balls to decorate with! You can pile them into a basket, or you can hang them as a garland like I did. 

To make my garland, I inserted some string into my balls, tied them off and then repeated with the next ball.

I love the pop of color they bring into the room.

They were a “ball” to make! 😉

June is pretty crazy about them too. The first time she saw them she ran up to them and pointed, saying “Ball, ball, ball!”

I’m considering adding a string of lights to the garland too. We’ll see. 🙂