How to make stress relieving balls

Gather your supplies

Start by taking your balloon and stretching it out. It helps in the upcoming steps. This should only take a minute or so.

You'll know it's done when it's not as resistant to stretching. If you have more than one balloon, you can use them to compare.

Hold your stretched-out balloon neck up. Take a handful of rice in your other hand.

Pour the rice in. It can take several handfuls, and it's okay if it doesn't all go in at once. I've used funnels before, but the rice tends to get stuck in the neck. Fill it up to the neck.

This is when the stretching comes in handy. Hold the bottom of the balloon in one hand, and pull the neck of the balloon up with the other.

Next, mash all the rice down to the bottom of the balloon. It should almost look like a Christmas tree ornament.

Go ahead and fill it up to the neck again.

Keep pulling the neck and pushing the rice down. Add rice to the neck every time you push the rice back down. Make sure to fill the tip of the balloon!

Do this until you get it to the size you want. This rearranges the rice so you can fit more rice in, and stretches the balloon to give you more space.

It looks sort of like a turnip at this point. I'm going to leave it at this much, but you can put more rice in or do less. It's your balloon!

Tie the neck of the balloon. Make sure no air gets into the neck while you're tying.

Congrats! You've made a stress relieving ball! You can decorate them with Sharpies if you want to. If you do, make sure you let it try before you use them. To relieve stress: squish away! Have fun!