An Overabundance of Balls

I cleaned off the dining room table enough over the weekend to make wreaths, so it's mostly covered with various wreath-making materials: glue gun, a zillion Christmas ornaments (there has been no shortage of ball jokes this weekend), bells, newspaper (a vital element when you use my name and glue gun in the same sentence), and ribbon. I finished the wreath for my door and one for my mom. I have a big one for my wall in the works, because I'm greedy and selfish even though Christmas is on the way. I have plans to make a little one for Booie's teacher, one for my mother-in-law and one as a housewarming gift if I have the time and inclination.

My current focus in wreath making is to form a wreath out of only Christmas balls, which I think looks very cool. It's also a much bigger pain in the ass than you could ever imagine. First, there's the glass on glass factor. Ordinary glue won't work because a) it doesn't dry fast enough to hold the balls in place without me having to stand there holding it for an hour, and b) it takes the finish off many of the balls (I could call them ornaments, but I like saying balls. I think it's funny. I'm twelve.). Hot glue is pretty dandy for this project, but it does render the wreaths indoor only, because the balls shrink in the cold (snort), and the glue pops right off. Imagine a mass of glass balls glued together in this manner and then getting cold. Yes, it means disaster. But all of that's ok. People just have to keep their balls warm. The worst thing about having to use hot glue is the fact it's hot. It doesn't help that I'm cheap and don't want to buy one of those new-fangled low-temp glue guns, because I have a perfectly operational hot glue gun. I am currently typing on blistered fingertips, but that's ok. The blisters protect my fingers the next time I get the hotter-than-hell glue on them. I have gotten a little smarter with this and keep one of those blue ice thingies beside me, so when I do get that horrible stuff on my fingers, I can ice them down immediately. I think hot glue could be used as a weapon in war. It's some nasty shit.

I got a little off track on the glue there. I think it was from saying "balls" too much. Anyway�

The other thing that makes these wreaths much harder than they look is the shape of the balls. Being round means the things only touch each other at one point, and that is the exact point where I want the glue, so the whole thing doesn't become a big glue-y mess that looks like one of those nasty silk flowers with the "dew drops" on it. (I have a pen Booie made for me with one of those on it, and I tell her how beautiful it is and how much I love it because I'm a good mommy, but I secretly gag when she's not looking.) What I do to avoid hot glue overdose is place the ball and mark the contact points with a pen, then put a dab of glue on each mark. Then it's just a matter of figuring out the original position I had the ball in in the first place. I'm very fussy about the placement of my balls.

I don't go for a uniform look with these things either, so I have to stand back every so often or hang the thing up to make sure the balls are evenly placed around the wreath. No one likes to have too many balls on one side and not enough on the other. It doesn't look right, and it makes things hang funny. Well-dispersed balls are much more pleasing to the eye. So I glue some balls, look at it, glue some more balls, stand on a chair to look at it from a better distance, glue some more balls, hang it up and look at it, and glue some more balls.

If it sounds like I'm gluing a lot of balls, it's because I am. I think the little twelve inch wreath took somewhere around 70 or 80 balls. I'm making an eighteen inch wreath now, but I got wiser and used bigger balls for the base. I'm already up to 60 balls on that thing though, and I'm not done yet. You can never have too many balls.

Everyone who sees these things loves them to death. Even men like them, and men usually don't admit to liking balls not associated with sports. These would sell like hotcakes, and I could easily make my million with ball wreaths except for one thing� I don't own a sweatshop in China. Balls aren't cheap, especially when you're finicky like me and buy the pretty, expensive balls instead of the cheap, average balls. You get what you pay for in the ball market. One set of the balls I use, containing anywhere from twelve to twenty balls depending on size, costs $7. The little wreath cost somewhere in the vicinity of $40-$45 in materials alone. I would have to charge $50 for a twelve inch wreath just to make $5-$10 on something that took me at least a couple hours to make. Who's going to pay that kind of money for twelve inches of balls when they can go to Target and get a twelve inch pepper berry or fake sparkly fruit wreath for $20? Nobody, that's who. It's just like selling Longaberger baskets. They might be prettier and ten times the quality of the made-in-China-by-poor-oppressed-workers-making-a-few-cents-a-day crap, but people would rather walk out of Walmart with a cartload of junk than pay me $50 for balls in a circle. So as much as I would like it, I don't think my fortune lies in balls, at least not the glass, ornamental, Christmas kind.