Dinosaur Egg String Balls

This is one of the many projects I made for Kabir's Dinosaur Birthday Party. I am still waiting on the birthday pictures, so I am going to use this time to post the projects I made. 

This is very similar to the hemp lamp I had made here, but with some important differences. For the egg shape, I used a balloon instead of a ball. And cotton/acrylic yarn instead of hemp string. You can color the hemp string instead as well. But these 2 replacements introduced new problems. As balloon is thin, it sticks quite strongly with the yarn, which makes the yarn more susceptible to cave in once deflated, leaving the ball shapeless. After trying various options, I figured that the balloon needed to be coated with something to avoid yarn from sticking too much with balloon. From what I read online from others experiences, some people tried using Vaseline, but it made the balloon surface very slippery. So, putting the string on makes it tougher.  Finally, I decided to use wax instead, and it worked like a charm. Below is a small tutorial on what worked for me:

What you need:

• Acrylic/Cotton yarn
• Small size latex balloon
• Dry wax(I used my dry wax for hair)
• Fork or needle to deflate the balloon
  
• Clear gel tacky glue or any fast drying glue

1) Blow the balloon in the shape of an egg.

2) Coat it with wax: very important step. Try not to leave any spot. The green ball below is an example of what happens if this step is skipped. Once the balloon is deflated, the yarn caves in, and the ball is left shapeless and loose.

3) Pour glue in a bowl. Dip the fingers in the bowl and run it through a small section of string and then wrap it around the ball.

4) Let it dry over night, for around 12 hours. The acrylic wool takes less time to dry than hemp string. 

5) Deflate the balloon with a fork or needle. This was Kabir's favourite part(or should I say, the only part where he was involved in this project).

There was an egg waiting for him everyday in the morning (for almost a week) that he would deflate. I think he enjoyed deflating the ones that caved in more than the others.

The blue and orange string balls were made with the additional step 2: of coating the balloon surface with wax, and I love the output.

You can leave a place at the top (just like in hemp lamp), if you want to use it as a lamp.

Enjoy!