Snowman Tennis Ball Ornament We have another winter craft that uses old tennis balls. We've turned them into little snowmen ornaments. They can be easily personalized for each player or cheerleader. And just like the Halloween pumpkins you can cut a hole in the back and fill them with candy. We bought all of the things we needed for this project at Hobbie Lobbie. Most of the items we used came from the Doll & Bear Department and the miniature department at Hobbie Lobbie. I first tried spray painting the tennis balls white and found it was impossible to cover up the yellow. I needed to use a heavier paint (so I could cover the yellow). I ended up using a big tube of professional acrylic paint. This kind of paint is pretty expensive but it is so thick that I only needed to use one coat of paint to completely cover each tennis ball. I also like this paint because it washes of your hands easily. I mixed a little bit of water into my bowl of paint and found it was easier to apply. As you can see from my picture the paint is still very thick. You can use any kind of craft paint for this project. If it is thinner than what I used you will have to go back and do a few touch ups. I made sure to apply a very heavy layer of paint. I let them dry over night. I was very happy with how they turned out. The dried paint gave me a nice hard shiny surface to work with. I knew I was going to put glasses on some of the snowmen so I used them as a guide for determining where to put the eyes. I used a black marker and made small black dots where the eyes should be attached. I originally wanted to use miniature pieces of coal or some kind of black rocks (like from a fish tank) for the eyes. I decided to use these ¼ inch little black poms. They were really cheap and easy to glue on. I used my hot glue gun to attach the eyes. I tried regular school glue and the eyes kept falling off. Be careful using the glue gun. Have an adult supervise this step. For the mouth I used these smaller 7mm black poms. I used my marker to make 5 dots where I should attach the black poms. I used my hot glue gun again to attach the mouth. Have an adult supervise this step. I bought a square of orange felt to use for all of the carrot noses. I cut a long skinny nose out. Since a carrot is bumpy, I made sure not to cut it too straight. I only put a dot of glue on the face because I did not want to glue the entire carrot to the tennis ball. I wanted the nose to stick out and not curve around the tennis ball. Before I could attach the hat I had to make a string hanger. I cut 6 inches of gold string and then tied the ends together. I used my scissors and poked a small hole in the top of the hat. Be careful not to poke your finger with this. Let an adult help you with this step. I poked the gold knotted thread through the hole and then added a drop of hot glue on top of it to make it more secure. I ran a line of hot glue around the rim of the hat. I placed the tennis ball up side down on the hat and held it this way for about 10 - 15 seconds. It turned out great! I tried to make all of the snowmen a little different. One of the ways was to change the shape of the mouth. For this variation I just added more small poms. I made some mouths with straight lines and some with frowns. I even made one with a paper clip straightened and glued over the poms to look like braces. I found these glasses at "Hobbie Lobbie". They were only $1.99 for 3 pair. I wanted to make our girl snowmen stand out so I decided to add these plastic eyes lashes. The entire package was just .99 cents at "Hobbie Lobbie". I put a dot of hot glue behind each. Then I added a small section of the lashes. I thought the snowmen still didn't look girly enough so I added some pink ribbon. I was very pleased with how they turned out. I made little felt scarves for some of the snowmen. I used a 12 inch strip of felt for this one. You can use any fabric for this, even a bandana. We almost always add a hanger to the crafts we do. The girls always keep whatever craft they get and then use as Christmas ornaments the following year. I had a mom write the date on the back of the hat with a silver paint pen.