Pom Pom Tutorial

As I promised, here's the tutorial for the Pom Poms from the last post.

1. Buy tissue paper that has at least 18 sheets. I personally don't think the size really matters.

2. Make sure you have some good strong/sharp scissors. Tangent... does anyone have Cutco scissors? We had a pair and they claim they can cut a penny in half! I want to use Cutco scissors with these pom poms because that is the hardest part... I digress.

3. Stack all 18 sheets on top of each other and begin folding the tissue paper length wise in about inch-and-a-half folds alternating sides so you begin to make a fan.

I really didn't make this too precise. It really doesn't matter and all small errors won't be seen.

4. Once you have the whole length folded you will cut each side either with a rounded tip or triangle tip. I chose to cut these pink ones with a triangle because I was struggling with the dull scissors I had and then tried to use an exacto knife. The exacto knife sort-of worked but if I didn't go slow and carefully I would rip the tips off the tissue paper. Not good, but not a disaster either.

The pieces you see on the sizes was just the excess I had already cut off. If you think about it, taking 18 pieces of tissue paper and folding them over according style about 8 times, you get a very thick stack of tissue paper. It was just difficult to cut through all that without a good pair of sharp scissors... hence Cutco scissors!!

5. Fold it in half and put a small gage wire aroud it and make both ends of the wire meet back up together on one side of the paper. This is what you will use to hang your pom pom. I just brought them together and twisted the ends a few times then trimmed the ends close to the twists.

So this is what mine looked like after I cut both sides and folded it together... not perfect in the least... no big deal! This project is extremely forgiving.

6. Nows the fun part! begin by grabbing the top layer of the tissue paper and pull it back towards the middle fold. Then pull the next layer and so on. I will do about half on one side flip it and pull the other half on the other side. Once you have pulled each layer of tissue paper you will have your pom pom and you can fluff and arrange! I tie a thin string around the wire and use that to hang the pop poms! Enjoy!!!

Here's where I found the tutorial the first time I tried it. I figured I would give a bit more explaination because it took me a while to understand their directions.

HA! This is really funny!!! I just re-read the instructions and realized it said eight sheets and not eighteen! Ha!!! That is so typical me! I'll have to try that next time... maybe it would be easier to cut ;)