The Sponge Ball

(Sung to the tune of "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things):

"Lampshades exploding and minor concussions,

I've told you children NO throwing couch cushions!

Look out the window, it's raining some more!

Why can't I find a ball safe for indoors?

When the day's long, when the kids fight, when a Mom gets mad...

I simply remember my fluffy Sponge Ball

And then I don't feeeeel sooo baaaaad!"

Okay, yes, if Little Jimmy wings this across the room and it comes into contact with your 14th century Ming Vase, it's probably going down. BUT, when Little Jimmy wings it at Little Susie's head, Little Susie will probably laugh and return the serve rather than have to be rushed to the Emergency Room for stitches. Any day without stitches is a good day!

This is fun, easy project. Toddlers will need a fair amount of help, bigger kids can probably do it almost on their own. You'll need 3 POLYESTER sponges, like the yellow ones at the right. NOT cellulose, like the really porous little square ones. And definitely not the kind with a scrubber on one side! Yikes! ;) Okay, three sponges, a good cutting scissors, and a zip tie. Do yourself a favor, get a 14" zip tie or even longer. If the zip tie is too short, you'll just end up wrestling with the sponges later and be a hot, sweaty, disgusting, cranky mess. Ask me how I know.

The very first thing you want to do is rinse the sponges and let them dry completely. They can sometimes smell a little funny coming right out of their plastic packaging, but a good drench-and-dry takes care of that.

Next, cut one of your sponges, the long way, into 3 strips of approximately even widths. I'm not a stickler for even-ness (as you can see) 'cuz, ultimately, this ball ain't about bein' pretty. Plus, it's kind of inherently pretty when you're done, you'll see. Cut all three sponges in this way.

Next, take all nine sponge strips and bundle them together. Don't worry about neatness or which edges are where, or how the pieces are facing... The more randomly bundled, the better. Just make sure that they're even at the tops at bottom.

After you've bundled them together, take one of your zip ties and wrap it around the middle of the bundle. Insert the pointed end through the hole in the other end and pull, just a little, just enough to hold the bundle together. Take a second to adjust any aponge strips that have slipped too far up or down. When you've got them where you want them, PULL HARD. Pull the zip tie as tight as you possibly can, until it can't get any tighter. Spread the "arms" of the ball so you can get in nice and close to the zip tie "knot" and snip off the excess of the zip tie.

Voila!! Your completed Sponge Ball. Big ones are super fun outdoors, medium sized and little ones are great for inside play spaces and bath time. Just a note: If you do decide to play with them in water, know that they won't float (obviously, they're sponges) and that it will take the very middle under the zip tie forever to dry, so I tend to snip them apart after water play, lay out the seperate pieces to dry, and put it back together with a new zip tie when it's ready.

Have fun!