DIY Grapevine Ball

Last Updated on November 2, 2017 by Jane

I was trolling through Pinterest before Christmas and found these Christmas light balls that looked so amazing. I started looking into how to make them. The ones I originally saw were made with chicken wire, which was fine but I didn’t have any on hand. I did however have plenty of grapevines. We back onto a forest and a number of the trees are crawling with grapevines. Since I know that grapevines can be damaging to the trees I decided to do the city a favour and start pulling off the grapevines to create my own DIY Grapevine Balls.

When I was researching how to create these light up christmas balls I found a few different ways to approach them. One way was to use chicken wire as I already mentioned.

Another DIY that was also creating diy grapevine balls used an inflatable beach ball to get the perfect ball shape. While I like this idea if you are looking to create a sphere with as little grapevine as possible it really is unnecessary. I wouldn’t go out and buy a beach ball to do this diy.

I took a more free hand approach, building the ball with layers. I had access to plenty of grapevine and have had loads of practice making grapevine wreaths. My Grandmother taught me how to do it when I was a kid. Gra

Creating a DIY Grapevine Ball

1. The first thing I did was create a small tightish circle. It was much smaller than I would start for a wreath but I wanted something with enough structure I could build off of.
2. The next vine I used I went in the opposite direction making my object 3D. It didn’t look much like a ball yet, more like two intersecting circles.
3. Each vine I added I tried to go in a different direction than I had before. Each layer started looking more and more spherical.
4. I stopped when I ran out of grapevine the second time. I could have continued building and making the ball even bigger but I had gotten to a nice shape so I quit. You have to judge for yourself if the size and shape are round and big enough to suit your needs.

And that is it really. Keep adding layers of grapevines in opposite directions until it layers up into a ball.

After I determined my DIY grapevine ball I added some Christmas lights. Just like I had with the grapevines I made sure to wrap the Christmas lights in a few different directions to get some decent coverage. If you are looking for an affordable DIY this is it. Grapevines are free and chances are you have Christmas lights lying around. I did try solar Christmas lights this year and they work great as long as you have enough light and snow isn’t covering the solar panel.

Shortly after I made this first grapevine ball it snowed! I wasn’t able to continue my project and make more balls of various sizes.

One thing I will note is that while the chicken wire balls look fantastic lit up at night they are a little less interesting during the day. This is why I prefer the look of the grape vine balls. That said it would take much longer to create an extra large grapevine ball. The one above took me about an hour to create and it is slightly bigger than a basketball. Still when spring comes around again I will be making a few more sizes so that I can fill up my yard with beautiful twinkly spheres. 

Let me know if you try this DIY for yourself!