Look at this picture.
Aren't cotton swabs making cute balls? These balls can be used to make Christmas tree decorations and decorative tabletop compositions in the form of exotic flowers. But more on that later.
What is needed to make balls?
We will need a base ball. This can be a large foam ball with a diameter of 4-5 cm. If you don’t have foam balls, it’s okay: take a plastic quick-hardening mass based on gypsum, a ready-made mass for modeling, or just plasticine. We will also need PVA glue, cotton swabs themselves and watercolor paints dissolved in water to a soft pastel color.
The process of making balls from cotton swabs.
We cut a handful of sticks in half diagonally to create a pointed tip in the shape of a feather - this makes it easier to stick the stick into the base ball.We begin to stick the sticks in evenly: first around the circumference, and then gradually fill one hemisphere and let it dry. By the way, for strength, you need to dip the tips of the sticks first into glue, and then stick them in. Otherwise, when painting, wet and heavy sticks will fall out of the holes. When one half, studded with cotton swabs, dries and the sticks sit firmly in the base ball, it’s time to fill the remaining empty hemisphere. You can try to do everything at once, but in this case it’s difficult to hold the workpiece in your hands: the sticks are still not firmly seated and are wobbly.
Coloring.
Balls made from cotton swabs are very tactilely pleasant: they fit well in the palm of your hand and are extremely pleasant to pick up. They look cute even in a simple, unpainted form. However, after painting the balls look even more impressive. For coloring, we will prepare two or three bowls with colored water. Water can be colored with watercolors, food coloring, and even brilliant green or iodine. Painting is quick and a lot of fun. We will simply dip our fluffy-prickly balls into colored water, and then put them to dry, pricking them on a skewer or wooden splinter. You can leave the balls to dry on oilcloth.
You can also paint the tips of cotton swabs with a brush, dipping it into liquid paint, but in this case the tone will be more saturated. We will get an interesting effect if the plastic base of your sticks is not white or transparent, but colored, pink, yellowish or blue. The result is such exotic flowers. Monochrome option for a round flowerpot.
Multi-colored balls in a narrow vase.
Christmas ball toy on a string. In this case, we attach the thread to one of the sticks.
You can make fluffy balls with your children. This type of work develops fine motor skills well.
