Michele Made Me

One birdie's attempt to figure things out. Oh, and crafts.

Halloween Juggling Eyeballs

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This is a Halloween craft but it’s also a love craft. See, when Lo and I first met way back when, we both worked at Science North, a children’s science museum in Sudbury, Ontario. Learning to juggle, and teaching others how, was part of the job description. It was our way of breaking the ice with the visitors and getting them involved in the whole museum experience. On top of that, we taught people how to make these balloon and rice juggling balls so they could go home, throw some together, and keep honing their juggling skills.

Science North is where Lo and I first made eyes at each other. And it’s pretty much guaranteed that we fell in love whilst learning to juggle (and flirting our pants off) over a shared trio of balloon and rice juggling balls. So today’s craft is dedicated to Lo and his blue-green eyes: the sweetest pair of eyes I ever did see.

Balloon and rice juggling balls have been around for eons. HERE is a fine tutorial by the Ontario Science Center‘s SciZone already done up and ready to go. It shows how to make the basic juggling balls. Today I’m adding my very own Halloween twist on this tried and true craft.

Tutorial  ✂  Halloween Juggling Eyeballs

Start by making the basic juggling balls as per the OSC tutorial.

Note that the juggling balls are made of 3 layers of balloons with rice as the filler. The colour of the first layer doesn’t matter; it’ll be completely covered. However to produce the eye effect, I used black and white balloons as my second and third layers respectively.

Starting to look like eyeballs, eh? You could leave them just like this, but I chose to add a little flavour to them by painting in some irises and drawing on some tiny red veins.

 

And there you have them! Sweet and juicy juggling eyeballs. Does it feel like you’re being watched?… Spooky…
Here’s Lo now testing them out. They work like a charm! See that? He’s still got it after all this time.

 

Make a few as Halloween decorations or have a go at juggling yourself! It’s surprisingly relaxing once you figure it out. It only took me 24 days to learn!

Have yourself a fantastic weekend. Eye’ll be back here on Tuesday!

 

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Comments

  2. Melissa says

    What a brilliant idea. The girls and I started learning how to juggle at the beginning of the school year but it fell by the way side…when we got busy. I know my my Mom bought us a book about Otedama for Christmas and is making some balls according to the books instructions but meanwhile…I am so excited!! Thanks for the tutorial!!

    BTW that is high on the list of sweet "how I met my spouse" stories.

  4. nicolette at dutchcomfort says

    Michele this is so much fun to see!

    It reminds me of all the eyeballs I made for my graduation exhibition at Art School. It was all about a virual museum for spectacles. I used foam balls and painted them with Gesso and they were in jars all over the place. Sweet memories!

  6. Poppyprint says

    Only 24 days, you say? You're a veritable prodigy! I love the idea of you two flirting over little kids' projects at the science centre. This is such a great craft. I'm going to show my juggling fiend of a daughter!

  16. Eileen says

    So fun! Gotta make some of these for my grandsons. My son learned to juggle and ride a unicycle…can't remember if he rosde and juggled st same time but wouldn't be surprised. Now his nephews would just love to do anything he can