SNOWBALLS

First of all I suck at blogging. I might be even worse at giving directions, but I am going to try. I am also not a professional photographer and I took all of the following pictures with my phone (because I have a giant camera that most likely has dead battery that I need to remember to pack to take to Texas tonight...SOMEONE REMIND ME!!!!) If you think the pictures are awesome and need an awesome picture taking phone, I have an HTC Thunderbolt. Anyway... on to the point.

Last year I saw a little bucket of fleece snowballs somewhere. They were so cute and soooo expensive. I decided that I could totally make them myself, how hard could it be. I got a yard of white fleece and it made 34 or so snow balls. I have no idea how long it took me to make them. in my head it was like an hour. Since it only took an hour I figured I would get FOUR YARDS this year and make 136 or so. So far it has taken me a million hours and I have only finished 5 of them. On to my crappy instructions.

First get some fleece. 1 yard makes about 34, if you use a CD for a circle pattern. Fold the fleece in half, with the good side on the inside. This can be really hard to tell on white and it really doesn't matter all that much. I am honestly not sure if mine was folded the right way.

Next I cut strips of fleece, a little wider than the CD and then cut the strips into squares just a little bigger than the CD. I did this because I thought it would be easier to cut out the circles and I wanted to sit in my recliner and do it. I have like a million Jimmy Fallons to watch so I have to work in front of the TV.

Next I put the CD on a square and cut around it to make a nice circle. Make sure you have TWO pieces of material when you do this. After you cut all your circles you should have a nice pile like this

Now sew all around the out side of the circle but leave an opening so you can stuff it. If you make it really wide you will have a lot to sew shut. If you make it too small it is a bitch to turn right side out and stuff. I think maybe an inch is good.Next turn it right-side out.

Now stuff it like crazy. The more you stuff, the more ball like it will become when you are finished. I used a giant bag of fiber fill. Actually for four yards I used almost 2 whole bags of it.

Next sew the hole shut. I tried to do it on the sewing machine but I couldn't do it. Maybe if you are better at using the machine it will work for you. I pretty much suck at sewing. I fold the raw edges over and make sure that when I am stitching I go through both parts to that it looks like a finished edge. I also start the thread INSIDE so the inside knot is inside. When it is completely sewed shut I go back under a stitch and make a knot and cut the thread off. So far we haven't had any snowballs explode.

It looks really crappy but if you roll the seam around in your hand you can almost make it look like a ball and it is almost like rolling a real snowball.

The bucket of snowballs from last year. I am working on some type of fun container to hold them.

We had a snowball fight this weekend at my aunt's house. I tried to get some action shots but my phone is slow and my kids (and niece and nephews) are super fast like True Blood vampires.