Christmas Surprise Balls

I made Christmas surprise balls for the girls a few weeks ago, and they are nestled near the top of our tree.  O is SO excited about opening hers!   I'm going to let them open them on December 23, so they won't get overlooked in all of the Christmas excitement. 










E's center gift is a holztiger cat Holztiger Katze, klein, grau.  I started a collection of holztiger animals for her for her 1st birthday.  We gave her a giraffe since we fed giraffes on her birthday.  She'll get this cat and a zebra for Christmas, since she is obsessed with cats and she dressed as both a zebra and later a cat for Halloween.




O's center gift is a pack of silly bands, but I'm sure the chocolate will be her favorite!




I made a Valentine's Day Surprise Ball for O this year for Valentine's Day.  I explained how I made the ball and included a pic of the process in that post if you are interested in more details.

Valentine's Day Surprise Ball

O is getting a surprise ball for Valentine's Day! I saw this tutorial for a surprise ball too late to make one for O for Christmas, but I think it will be a great Valentine's Day gift. It was fun, fast, and easy to make!



First, I collected small objects for the surprise ball, including chocolate lady bugs, Valentine's balloons, a growing mermaid, tiny dessert erasers, chapstick, and stickers.

Then I started wrapping the objects with crepe paper streamers (the tutorial says to cut the crepe paper into strips first, but I didn't cut my crepe paper). I wrapped an object completely before adding another object and wrapping it and so on and so on...

After all of the objects were wrapped in the crepe paper, I squished it around a little to make it a more symmetrical ball (it was a little lopsided at first). I continued wrapping it several times to smooth out the crepe paper. Then I taped the end and wrapped the surprise ball with a ribbon. I think O is going to LOVE unwrapping her surprise ball on Valentine's Day!

Make sure to check out the tutorial at Alpha Mom. The pictures and directions are much better than mine :)