Ball o' Tacks

I'm so proud.  I just finished DIY'ing my first project from inspiration off of Pinterst.  I was looking for decorative balls to add to a glass bowl on our coffee table in the living room, but I wanted white and was having a hard time finding anything.  That's when I ran across this photo....

Source

....and thought it was really cool and wanted to try it, plus I had been at a friend's house and wouldn't you know it, but she had made one as well, so I knew they actually look really neat.

It's simply a foam ball with spray-painted tacks.  The hardest part is trying to track down enough boxes of tacks.  My size of foam ball took 6 boxes of tacks.  I think I emptied Hobby Lobby's stock like 3 times - they only had 1-3 boxes everytime I went.  And I looked elsewhere but couldn't find these types of tacks.  But now that I think about it, pretty sure I never tried looking at like a Staples or Office Max....hmmm.

Anyways, since I wanted my ball to be white, I poked all my tacks into a piece of styrofoam and sprayed away.

After they dried, I then obviously started adding all the tacks to the foam ball.  I started in the center middle of the ball and overlapped each tack a little bit.  Not sure I explained that real well, but hopefully you get the picture. 

My final step will be to add a layer of white spray paint over all the tacks to really set them in place.  Note: I did add a little hot glue to a few of the final tacks because they weren't really staying in the foam on their own.

Otherwise, that's it.  Really simple but took me longer since I had to make several trips for tacks.  I didn't realize it would take so many, but it all depends on the size of foam ball you get.

I also picked up 2 decorative black/oil-rubbed-bronze balls while at Hobby Lobby and plan to spray those white as well.  I like to have different textures.

But for now, my glass bowl is filled with pretty fall gourds.

PS - operation paint the kitchen cabinets has commenced.  Wish me luck!