I came across this idea via Design Mom. The basic idea is to take small gifts and brightly colored crape paper strips. You start with the largest item and wrap it with the crape paper and then add another item and repeat until all the items are wrapped in the ball. Here are detailed instructions on how to make a surprise ball.
These surprise balls remind me if some gifts I gave my nieces when they were young. I wrapped their gifts in yarn. I took a small item and wrapped yarn around it until it was the size of a volleyball. I like the idea of having a series of small gifts to discover along the way.
I think it would be fun to have a series of small trinkets and photos that relate to a family member. It could focus on a single story with the items in the surprise ball help to tell the story. This idea has some great possibilities, I can’t wait to try this out.
Surprise Balls – photo by HonestlyWTF
telling family tales 
Very cute! In your “about me” you say that scrapbooking was too “decorative” for you. What do you mean by that?
Sometimes scrapbook pages can get so much “cute stuff” on them that the photos and the story behind the photos are lost in the decorations. My theory is that if the embellishments don’t help to tell the story they get to be too much. Sometimes I think scrapbookers need to understand that “less is more” much of the time.
Does that answer you question?
I like that thought. I take a different approach to scrap booking. I like to use several photos and put the emphasis on more photos as if its a photo album.
That is much more along the lines of how I like to handle photos. Make the photos the focus and not the decorations.
I agree with that completely and get frustrated when I see how a scrapbook page is “supposed” to look, according to the “mainstream.”
It could be the scrapbook pages are “supposed” to look that way because it sells product. Without all those embellishments the scrapbook industry would be much smaller. I think scrapbooking is great, when it gets done, because it helps to preserve and share memories and stories. But it can do that (and do it better, I think) when we keep things simpler.
Ah, you are right. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but of course! they want to sell the products.
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