Crafturday Saturday, Mirror Ball Trophy Edition!

Offical DWTS Mirror Ball Trophy

Today, my middle child is competing in her first ballroom competition at the ripe old age of seven. Her goal? To win the above trophy. By 4 years old, she had her life plan mapped out including: compete on So You Think You Can Dance and Win!11! and then move on to Dancing With The Stars and Win!11! So in honor of her determination and drive, I've made her her very own mirror ball trophy.

You don't get a trophy, but you do get a tutorial in how to make your own!

First you need a trophy and a mirror ball. You could buy them online and pay a fortune, or head to your local Party City (or equivalent) and hit up the "awards" aisle for the trophy and the "party decor" aisle for the mirror ball. For today's project, we're using a "jumbo" trophy and a 4" mirror ball. And PLENTY of hot glue.

To make the mirror ball sit in the trophy, you're going to need to saw off the rounded parts at the top of the trophy. Grab a hacksaw and get to gettin'. It won't take long and if you're careful, you'll have a great result. The plastic is cheap, so it saws through pretty quickly.

 The bottoms of my trophies were hollow, so I filled them with poly pellets used for stuffing animals and closed them off with a piece of cardboard and some hot glue and then glued some 3mm thick "foamie" sheets to the bottom to have it be a non-slip more finished looking trophy. I used a a paper cup to hold the trophy in an inverted position to make my life easier and to keep the mother-lovin' pellets from going EVERYWHERE. Do NOT omit this part if you want to keep your sanity.

Once you finish off the bottom of the trophy, flip it over and press it down a bit to make sure the warm glue gets really stuck in and the trophy is level. At this point you're ALMOST done, so pat yourself on the back and get out your disco ball. Resist the temptation to hang it up and rock out in your craft area. You can get your OWN disco ball later. They're much better for groovin' if you get the LARGE one and not the baby sized one anyways. Ahem. Not that I know anything about that. Not at all. Ahem.

Okay, now here's the part that's tricky. You want to get the hot glue inside the trophy but NOT on the outside. It's a PAIN to get off if it blurps out. So make one line of glue about 1/2 cm from the lip of the trophy, test the ball in the trophy being sure to put the dangly part INSIDE the trophy. Apply another layer of glue nearer the edge of the trophy but staying inside. THEN eyeball the mirror ball and apply glue to the ball itself in a dot pattern around the ball. Smush it down on the trophy GENTLY and it should stick nicely with all the warm glue bonding to itself.

For bonus points, use Photoshop to create a nifty label for the trophy. This part took way longer than putting together two mirror ball trophies including shopping for supplies! Extra bonus points if your last name starts with "S". Like so:

I used a Xyron label maker to turn my plain paper printout into a permanent label. W00T! for using all sorts of crafting supplies in one project.