Treasure ball

My friend Haring* in Seattle is going through a crappy breakup, and I thought he could use some cheering up. I've had some crepe paper lying around, so earlier this week, I thought I'd pull together a treasure ball for him to discover. Who doesn't love treasures in the mail?

First I assembled some treasures: a fall garland made from felt stickers, rubber stamp, autumn gnome, a window crystal, some puzzle erasers, an imprint of a pine cone, a fallen tree, and various gems and table scatter.

Haring has cats, so I purposely left out any felt stuffies or birds. They are going to dig all that crepe paper, though.

I chose the grand prize to wrap first: a rainbow-making window crystal, with other treasures.

 ...and wrapped it up.

Next some autumn table scatter....

...a rubber stamp...

...a puzzle eraser...

...a pendant made from a Yosemite pine cone impression....

 .....and another puzzle eraser.

I told Starboy we were making a treasure ball for Mr. Haring. Immediately he said he wanted to make Haring a fallen tree. "He needs to warm his heart," Starboy said. According to a Martin and Sylvia Sparkle Story, after you warm your heart, you find a "sit spot" in the woods, to soak up some nature and re-center your spirit. So here is a portable sit spot for Haring.

Do you love that? Starboy has never met Haring and has no idea what he's going through.

In it goes.

 By this time, I ran out of crepe paper. Luckily I had a second roll to get rid of.

 The garland was fun to make....

 ...and in it goes...

 ....gems, beads and puffs as the roll gets bigger....

 ....and the autumn gnome actually will fit without his hat getting squished!

 I was even able to fit in a crazy-color pencil. This will pique his interest as he begins to unwind.

The first clue will be an autumn pumpkin. Curious! This should get his juices flowing as he investigates.

Somehow it all fit into the shoe box I'd chosen. I purposely kept the ball a bit disc-like, knowing I'd have to fit it in. A vintage-style Halloween postcard has a sweet hello (and likely will illustrate how late the package is, since there's probably no chance this thing will get to Seattle by Wednesday, especially with Hurricane Sandy tweaking all the air schedules.

All told, I used two full rolls of crepe paper, about 10 treasures (with some Halloween candy), and a handful of gems and table scatter.

As I was tearing up catalog pages to stuff in the box for shipping, I found a Restoration Hardware ad for a commercial treasure ball! I guess you can go to the trouble to make the thing perfectly round. That would have been pretty. Okay I feel like a bit of a heel now. 

Ah, well.

Theirs has 12 plastic prizes, all Cracker-Jack sized. Cute idea for Christmas morning, before breakfast—or Christmas eve dinner. The picture has some great ideas—a wooden tangrams set from Etsy would be a great addition!

If you make your own treasure ball, please link in the comments so we all can check it out!

*Nearly everyone gets a code name to help with privacy.