Anti Stress Balls

Stress and its relationship to illness is very well known: asthma, obesity, heart problems, headaches  are just  few examples of diseases related to stress. Nowadays it seems everybody is stressed out and, if we want to avoid the illness related to stress and stay healthy,  is advisable to learn different ways to deal with it in our everyday lifes.

One thing  I do when I'm stressed out or anxious, is to squeeze, stretch and crumple my homemade anti-stress balls.  Doing that, helps me to relieve stress and, is fun to shape it into different forms.

Here is how to make it. It is very easy and cheap, so I hope you have fun and "squeeze" out stress  just as I do.

Step 1: Materials

You'll need the following

Balloons: 3 for each ball. I recommend 9" balloons for a medium size ball.
Flour
A spoon
A stick
A funnel
Scissors
Optional:
Wool if you want to make a "hairy" ball

Step 2: Making the Ball

1. Stretch the balloon a few times. This will soften the rubber a little bit
2. With the help of the funnel, fill up the balloon with flour. Push the flour down into the ballon with the aid of the stick
3. Tie it up in a knot.
4. Cut the balloon´s neck.
5. Now, to avoid accidents and cleaning up flour, take other balloon and cut it's neck as well.
6. Warp around the first balloon's knot with the second balloon.
7. To give your ball an original look, use the third balloon. You just have to make some extra cuts to the balloon and repeat steps 5 and 6.
8. If you want to make a "hairy" ball, continue to the next step. If not, you are done. Enjoy squeezing and shaping your ball.

The following video demonstrates the whole process:

Step 3: The Hairy Ball

To attach hair to your ball do the following:

1. Wind the wool around your fingers until are fairly full of wool.
2. Carefully retire the wool from your fingers and pass a length of wool around the strands and tie it.
3. Cut between the strands.
4. Locate the knot in your ball.
5. Wind a lenght of wool around the balloon's knot.
6. Tie it tightly with a knot. Do not cut the excess wool.
7. Attach the "hair" to the ball by winding the excess wool in the ball around the "hair" Once it is firmly attached, make a tight knot and cut the excess wool.

You are done. If you want, you can draw a face in your ball using a sharpie marker. I like mine without face, it reminds me a radish :-)

Step 4: Final Toughts

Instead of flour, you can make stress balls using small seeds like lentil. If it explodes, lenti will be much easier to clean than flour (fortunately, mine have never exploded)
You can also use bigger balloons to make odd looking balls like the one I show you. In fact it does not look as a ball anymore. It was made with a 22" balloon. Is big enough to squeeze it with both hands.
Thank you for reading and have fun.