Pom Pom Garland

You remember the pom poms I showed you how to make here? Well I found a new way to use those poms other than cute, modern flowers. How about cute, modern garlands? Great for parties, events, even your home. I have them strewn around our office/craft room.

The first one I made out of leftover green and aqua poms from our wedding. I used aqua baker's twine from Divine Twine and threaded it through the center of each pom using a large embroidery needle and spacing them along the twine. It's hanging above the large window in our office/craft room.

For the second one, I created new poms out of bold, rich colors. Peacock blue, lime green, deep purple and magenta, they remind me of peacock feathers and they're currently my favorite colors for just about anything. I threaded them with gray baker's twine also from Divine Twine. It's hanging above the closet in our office/craft room.

Aren't they pretty and fun?

I have to admit that this project led to some frustration for me as the poms can be difficult to thread sometimes. Certain poms I made were threaded on the first try with no problems, but others would not go through after many tries and eventually fell apart. I really have no idea what I did differently either time to make it work (or not work).

If anyone has experience threading these poms to make a garland, please share with us the correct way to thread them easily everytime. I would love to know and I'm sure anyone else wanting to try this project would too.

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

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Vignette includes felt rosette heart wreath in red, yarn pom pom flower bouquet in hot pink, felt rosette flower bouquet in red and decoupage picture frame with red and purple damask pattern.

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Pom Pom Flower Tutorial

We take a break from the decoupage projects, to show you a tutorial for sweet pom pom flowers in preparation for Valentine's Day. If you recall, I made these flowers as part of our wedding centerpieces and now use them in my home decor. They are a simple, modern flower with a lovely texture, plus they're easy to make in any color you like.

To begin you will need the following supplies:

1. Yarn in your choice of color
2. Scissors
(simple, no?)

2. Wind the yarn around 2 or 3 of your fingers (number of fingers depends on the size of pom pom you want)

3. Continue to wrap the yarn around your fingers approximately 100 times (the more times you wrap, the larger the pom pom, a standard size pom pom is 100 times around 2 fingers)

4. Once you have finished wrapping, cut the end. Then cut an additional string of yarn (approx. 4-5 inches), slide the "tube" of yarn off your fingers and place it on top of the string so that the openings of the "tube" are facing the ends of the string.

5. Wrap the string around the tube of yarn so that it is centered and start to make a knot. Pull the string as tight as possible before completing the knot.

6. Once the string is as tight as you can get it, complete the knot.

7. Trim the ends of the string, take one side of the yarn and cut through the loops created by the center string.

8. Once you have cut through all the loops on one side you will have a bunch of fringe.

9. Cut through the loops on the other side to get the same fringe. Then begin to trim the fringe all around the ball.

10. Continue to trim the ends of the fringe evenly around the ball until you have created a pom pom to your liking.

Ta Da! Completed pom pom... you can do whatever you like with your little yarn pom. I like to make flowers by gluing the pom pom to a floral wire stem with a hot glue gun. Here is a bouquet of hot pink pom pom flowers in various sizes.

Simple and fun. Even our pup, Olive, likes it.

Enjoy!

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

Hanging Pom Poms

Our wedding ceremony and reception was held at an outdoor venue in a park. The reception was held in a white tent with white lights strung across and hanging chandeliers. I saw so much inspiration for tent decor in my online research that I wanted to include some hanging decorations as well. I found a tissue paper pom-pom kit by Martha Stewart at Michaels in our color scheme and I knew I had to have it. A few weeks later the kit was drastically marked down in price and so I didn't hesitate to grab a bunch.

As you know, I used a similar, smaller version of this technique for the centerpieces so they fit in perfectly with the rest of the decor. The kit includes everything you need to make 7 hanging pom-poms of varying sizes and shades of aqua. They were fairly large and due to space issues and not wanting them to crumple before the big day, I ended up making these two days before our wedding and giving them to our caterer to bring with them. Our good friend and wife of one of the Best Men hung them from the tent alternating sizes and colors. They added a beautiful and festive element and continued our theme into the reception. It was well worth the time spent at the last minute because it helped us create the perfect party atmosphere.

There are some fabulous do-it-yourself kits out there that take some of the pressure off finding the right materials for executing a project. Don't be afraid to try them as they are a happy medium between DIY and hiring someone to create something for you.

Kit photo by Kyle @ 918 Photo
Wedding photo by Vic Pellicier @ Pellicier a.p.d.
Next: Guestbook

Table Centerpieces

Once I decided to have Meg @ Princess Lasertron create our bouquets and boutonnieres, I also decided that we would not use fresh flowers at all in our decor. So when it came time to decide on the table centerpieces, I wanted to keep it simple, fun and handmade. I found two different techniques for creating flowers out of alternative materials. One technique uses yarn to create pom pom flowers and the other uses tissue paper to create carnations. The pom pom flower tutorial came from a 2008 post at Domestifluff and the tissue paper carnations came from Martha Stewart. I modified this tutorial on a Pom Pom Car Decoration and used wire for a stem instead of twine for a garland.

I created pom pom and carnation flowers out of various shades of aqua and moss/chartreuse green. I decided to do multiple bud vases in varying heights using both clear and milk glass at each table.
One vase had pom pom flowers...

And the others had tissue paper carnations. I made some solid colored carnations and some with two colors of tissue paper.

I added any extra buttons I had to the bottom of the clear bud vases to continue incorporating the button theme.




In addition to the vases of flowers, the center of each table included a table number. I purchased white double-sided Tolsby frames from IKEA for 99 cents each. I printed each table number twice onto pool cardstock cut to the size of the frame. I used a dot-themed border punch to punch a design around the outside of the pool cardstock. Then I cut spring green cardstock to the size of the frame and placed it in between the two table number cards. This way you could see the table number from both sides of the frame and the green cardstock came through where the dot-themed punch was used.

To finish out the table decor we added a few tealight candles to each centerpiece. Every table was slightly different yet they all coincided with our theme. These took some time to put together, but in the end they saved us money and looked fabulous.

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo
Next: Tent Decor