String balls

Back in October when my wife turned twenty-two her best friend got her hand-died silk thread from Laos.

It was beautiful and soft and (unsurprisingly) silky, but we had no clue as to what to do with it. Especially when if we didn't like what we did with it, getting more supplies would be pretty near impossible. After a couple of weeks, my wife made a decision about what she'd like to make, and it was ... well, the best way I can describe them is string balls. 

We decided that we'd like to make a decorative feature out of them, and place them into a glass vase. We also decided that we didn't want only them in the vase, and so we headed out to Dunelm Mill to pick up some supplies. 

Adding to those some balloons and some PVA glue, we set about making our string balls, pegging them out onto a line when they were done to allow them to dry without sticking to anything.

Upon being dry, we popped the balloons, and delicately extracted the remains, leaving us with some ball-like objects. They required a little reshaping at this point, but thankfully they seemed pretty willing to comply. 

The only step left was to put them in the vase with the other objects and find a place to put them:

Here's the vase in situ; we decided the best place for it was in the bathroom, as the blue ties in best there. So ... whatcha think? We reckon at some point we may make some more with the remaining silk thread, but we don't as yet have anywhere to display them so we'll hold off on that for a while!