Yesterday I blogged about making simple felted balls with my two year old. Our day felting outdoors continued with the making of a rattle/shaker ball. This is an adaptation of a project in the book “Feltique” with inspiration by some wet felted Easter egg projects I had read online earlier this spring.



To start, you will need beans, popcorn kernels, rice – anything hard that will make a shaking sound, a small container to hold the shaking objects, and duct tape (masking tape would work as well). We used a bean mix for our project. Our container is from Kinder Surprise Eggs given to the kids by their grandfather at Easter.



Sophie added as many beans as she wanted (while Ava watched).



Trying out the shaking sound…



Ava wanted a turn, too! Sound kid approved. :)



I covered the shaker with duct tape to give a surface for the wool to grab on to.





I then covered the shaker with core wool – wrapping it in different directions.



Then the fun part. Sophie dips the wool ball into warm, soapy water.



Sophie & I took turns working the first layer of felt in our hands.



Then I added another layer


Dip & Squeeze…





I was satisfied at this point that all the hard parts of the container were thoroughly covered with core wool. Now came the colour. Sophie is into blue at the moment so I chose a blue roving to cover the ball with.



We dipped and rolled & covered a couple more times until you could no longer see any core wool poking through.



Then, I put the ball into an old pair of panty hose and rolled it around on a towel on my lap, and between my hands, to get a smoother surface.



The finished ball. So the ball is pretty plain right, all one colour? I had intended to wet felt another contrasting colour, but Sophie pretty much had enough of felting for one day, and was off “cooking” in her play house. :)

So last night after it dried I started to needle felt it. I finished it today while we were outdoors.







I’d say it’s a hit with the critics. ;)