I am by no means an authority on the bowling balls, but I will tell you how I do mine. If I am going to use glass gems, I pick the color I want to use and paint my bowling ball the same color. Or if you don't want to paint it, you could use clear glass gems and have a red or black ball. Here is a link to my BBs. It might give you some ideas on what you might want to do.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bowling Balls

Me, well, my garden of bowling balls are all different colors... as I found them. Once you have 9 or 10, they look spectacular as is. My price limit is $5 and I've been collecting at estate and YS's for about 2 years.

Can't help you with embellishment, though...

I agree with shysue. I paint the ball to match the marbles. Or if they don't make the marbles in the color I want, I paint the ball and then use the clear marbles. Good luck!

There are several pages of BBs in our FAQ here, that might give you ideas. Also there are 23 pages of BBs on the MSN Garden junk site.

On my current BB that I'm working on,I painted it a creamy vanilla white.I'm using up all my left over marbles on it.It's turning out to look feminine/shabby chic colors of blues,oranges and pinks. It's the first one I have painted and it looks good. Caution....let it set for a day after painting it.Otherwise the marbles will take the paint with it if they slide.
Good luck with yours.
Julie

I used clear and red marbles on a deep red BB and swirled them. I love the way it turned out!

{{gwi:190678}}

~Sandy~

I would use clear on the red ball and cobalt blue on the black ball if you don't want to paint it. I think clear would look great on the black ball too.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Bowling Balls