Our weekend project!

This weekend we went to the Salisbury Festival and one of the booths featured tons of brightly colored hula hoops in all sorts of sizes.  The coolest part? They were homemade!  We were inspired and being the impatient sort I talked my husband in immediately going to Lowe's to buy supplies. LOL


To start off, all you need is some irrigation tubing (ours cost about $13 for 100ft), some couplers (we bought a pack of 10 for less than $4), and duct tape in whatever color or pattern  you choose. :)  I've looked online and I've seen other people just tape the ends of the tubing together, but we found it easier and more sturdy to use the couplers. 

First, you need to decide what size hoop you want--I made mine about 3ft in diameter, my littles' are closer to 2 1/2 ft in diameter with Mia's being on the smaller end.  To use the couplers, you have to heat one end of the tubing to soften it up a bit (but not too much!) and then quickly shove it in. LOL

One side down!

Heat the other end and push it onto the other end of the coupler to make the hoop.  There you go! 

Now all you have to do is decorate! 

As you can see I made mine rather simple.  The smaller hoop is Mia's right before we began to wrap the tape.  

I will be honest and say it took me awhile to get that hang of wrapping the tape (as evidenced by these pictures) and I'm still not that great at it. LOL  Luckily, my kids love me (and their hoops!) anyway. :)  

The finished product:

The hoops are much sturdier than the flimsy ones you can buy at the store and have just enough weight to them to make them easy and fun to use.  As you can see, I don't have any shots of us enjoying our hoops but that is because I've been to busy playing with my kids to get the camera out. I would call that a success.  :)

(A note: I have considered filling the tubing with sand to make a weighted hoop but that will take some patience.  I'll update if I decide to try it. :) )