Bowling Ball to Garden Pretty

I have seen a few pretty gazing balls made out of bowling balls, so decided to try it out for myself. I had the ball and some nice glass stones. Easy peasy, right? Well - easy enough, but this sucker was time intensive.  (click on the pics for a larger view)

I started with a bowling ball and about 5 bags of stones from the Dollar Tree. I used Lexel clear adhesive. And started to stick the stones on. They slid around, they fell off. So I had to slow down and get just the right amount of adhesive, then hold each stone on for at least 20 seconds before I went on to the next. After about two and a half hours, I had close to 2/3rds covered.  I put it away for the night. The next day, I saw that several stones had fallen off.

  I liked how the clear adhesive let you see through the stones to the black surface of the ball, but I was very discouraged at the loose and lost stones. So off I went to Ace Hardware, where I purchased some construction adhesive. This is used in a caulk gun ( you can see the handle of it in the first picture). This worked really well, and was faster, but it didn't have the same sparkle. 

 Here you can see the clear adhesive on one side, and the construction adhesive on the other. I allowed several hours for it to dry.

Next, according to what instructions I could find online, it was time to grout. My husband bought me ivory premixed grout. I slapped it on there and wiped off the excess. Enough for one day. 

The next morning, it looked like this. Look how tiny the stones look now. My husband saw it and said "You killed it." Sigh. I dampened it very slightly and started to carve out the stones from the grout. 

I actually tried this without dampening first - and wow. Like cement. It went much faster after it was a bit softer. I used a cuticle pusher - a pointed stick would work fine. This took another 3 hours. 

But it really made a difference. Here you can see the large green stone carved out, surrounded by others that needed carving. After they were all carved, I brushed over the whole ball with the veggie brush.

Next I realized that all of the ivory grout was really dull. 

So I went digging in my old fingernail polishes and picked out some contenders. I originally though about using all of the colors and making it very swirly. 30 seconds in I decided I liked the silver only.

I then decided I wanted the sparklies on top (the second from the right polish) So I used it on top of the gray. Another 2 hours. 

And here it is in all of its sparkly wonder.  Nice, but not worth the 10+ hours. It does have a pretty shimmer in sunlight. But I have decided I am going to try again, using only clear adhesive - and using silicon as a caulk around the stones instead of using grout. Hopefully I will find a clear that has a bit better stickiness!  And now, time to relax and gaze at my stone gazing ball.