How to Make a Stress Ball (Step-by-Step)

Whether it’s an activity with children you’re looking for or just need to relieve stress, these DIY stress balls are just for that. A perfect easy craft the whole family will enjoy making!

I love a good stress ball, I really do. They’re just so darn handy, and the squishy feeling in my palm really helps to soothe me. Did you know that there’s also a science behind it?

When you squeeze the ball in your palm, it stimulates the nerves in your muscles and palms, triggers your nervous system to help control stress and even to manage the hormones that instigate it. All that science behind such a simple ball…fantastic, yes?

You can make your own stress balls right at home and, if you’re in the mood for it, really go all out with personalizing and decorating it.  Don’t you just love that lazy loopy look on these stress balls–balloons?

If you’re ready to get started on this project, then go ahead and take a look at the supplies you’ll need.

Supplies You’ll Need

• Balloons
• Some cold water
• Plastic bottle
• Retractable knife
• Teaspoon
• Paper cup/a bowl
• Toothpaste
• Permanent markers

• Potato starch/cornstarch/wheat flour

How to Make Stress Balls

Just a heads up before you get started: make sure you have plenty of newspapers or paper towels at hand. This project is bound to get messy, especially when you start mixing.

Video Tutorial

Step 1

It’s time to make your paste. You will need a cup of water and some starchy substance like potato starch or corn flour. You can also use wheat flour, and that will give you totally different texture of the paste.

Go ahead and measure out some flour into a paper cup.

Next, pour in some cold water in the required ratio. If you prefer, pour the water gradually and keep stirring it in as you go till you get your preferred consistency.

Depending on the flour you use, the texture of your paste will differ. Corn flour will not be smooth like you’d expect. Instead, it will be watery and almost glazed.

Wheat flour, on the other hand, will be smooth and sticky, almost like sourdough, except a little runnier, perhaps.

Just roll up your sleeves and dip your hands in there. Play around with the paste till you’re happy with the consistency. Take the opportunity to have fun getting your fingers messy, too!

Also remember to add a pinch of salt to the paste to help increase its lifespan.

Step 2

Now, grab a balloon. Picking out the balloon is always the best part. There are so many colorful prints to choose from.

If you only have plain balloons at the moment, fret not. You can use a marker to draw loopy emojis on the surface. So go ahead and blow out a balloon to stretch it. The stretchier it is the more paste you can fit inside it.

Step 3

There are two ways you can choose between to help you get that paste inside the balloon. For this first one, grab a water bottle and a cutting tool and cut the top of the bottle off, to create a funnel-like device.

Step 4

Stretch the mouth of the balloon and slip it over the mouth of the water bottle. Remember to remove the cap, first.

Step 5

Next, simply pour your paste into the funnel and allow it to fill up the balloon. Squeeze in as much paste as you want into the balloon–the squishier, the better, right?

Step 6

Next, pull the mouth of the balloon off the rim of the bottle, carefully so as to not let the paste pour out.  You can twist the neck of the balloon a few times first, before you remove it. This will help you avoid a huge potential mess.

Just pull the end into a knot–or a double knot, too–and you’re done!

Step 7

Now this next method is actually a hack which you can use when you need a quick and easy stress ball, without the mess or hassle of actually making a paste from scratch. You’re going to use…toothpaste!

The best part about this method is that the paste will keep longer as it’s not made from perishable substance and it comes in a ready-made squeezy tube.

So go ahead and squeeze out all that paste into the balloon. 

Don’t forget to draw cute emojis, too! There you go, your DIY stress balls are ready to help you de-stress!

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