Tennis Bracelet

My mom plays tennis. My grandpa played tennis until his 90's.  He even won a medal in senior Olympics for tennis, so when I saw this craft, I knew I had to try it. 

The first thing you do is take a tennis ball and basically rip it apart.  It's not easy; but a great way to work out some frustration.   I found that a serrated knife seemed to work the best. 

You just have to work it carefully following the curved line.

After some time, you will have two halves of the tennis ball.  ( And tennis ball dust all over your lap, so do this in an area you don't mind getting a little messy.)

The next part is to get the hard rubber off the green fuzz.  Again, the trick is mostly brute force. Use the knife to help separate the glue that is keeping the ball together. ( Kind of like a seam ripper if you do any sewing.)  Eventually you will end up with something like this.

Now on to the fun. 

I do have to say I made a few mistakes on the painting.  My tip is to use good thick paint and darker color- for me- seemed to work.  I really had no color in mind as I still was not sure this would even work.  So the first layer was red and then I added a second layer of white paint.

 

Looks kind of like a maxi pad.... sorry.  I know you were thinking that, so I figured I would just get it on out there.  After you paint your maxi, let it dry.

I had a bit of brown ribbon that I hot glued across the front.  This was going to be how the bracelet would stay on.  I tied it around the bottle to let the glue dry and help keep the shape.

Next I took a  broken pin that I had, snipped off the pin part and hot glued that to the front.

 

Here is what it looked like all finished.

And here it is on my mom's wrist.

Needless to say, she loves it.  ( She has to, she's my mom.)  

You can go to Mich L and see her original tutorial, she gives some other suggestions on making and decorating that are FAB! If you have anyone who plays tennis, they will love it.

I link up to these great bogs...go check them out for wonderful ideas.