Made It: Pom Pom Garland

Hello! After seeing pom pom garlands on Pinterest, I decided to try making one myself. And since it's wintertime, I decided to make it with white yarn. I already had some yarn of that color on hand, left over from some long-ago project. It wasn't enough to make the garland length I wanted, though, so I scouted thrift stores for more. It's easy to find small amounts of yarn, very cheap, left over from others' projects. I grabbed cream-colored as well as white yarn.

There are a number of ways to make pom poms, ranging from winding yarn around pieces of cardboard, forks, and fingers, to pom pom crafting tools. I used an example of the latter, a pom pom making kit I'd bought with a Target gift card. (the gift card amount wasn't much, so I figured it best to buy something inexpensive with it). 

The photo I took of my pom pom making kit didn't turn out well, but you can see what it looks like here. If you view the link, you'll see that there's just a few reviews, one of which is negative. But I thought these worked just fine, and I liked the cute animal shapes too. 

I used the medium-size pom pom maker (it looks like a stylized sheep), which resulted in pom poms about 2 1/2" in diameter. I lost track of how many I made, but I believe it was 40. They were easy to craft.

Then it was just a matter of threading a tapestry needle with a length of yarn and stringing the pom poms on. I knotted each end of the yarn so that the pom poms wouldn't come off, but didn't feel the need to do anything to keep them in place on the yarn. They seem to stay in place pretty well on their own. 

My garland of white and cream-colored pom poms, ready to hang up. 

The pom poms don't show up really well in the above photo, so here's a close up:

I like how these turned out - they have a light, delicate look, but also have a touch of whimsy. Or so it seems to me. 

The possibilities are endless for this type of garland - a red, white and blue one for the 4th of July, or maybe make one in school colors to support an alma mater?

And of course, pom poms can be used for other projects as well. On Pinterest recently, I saw a display of small pom poms in various bright colors, glued to twigs that had been stuck in a vase. Very eye-catching! 

Hmm, I may need to hunt for more thrift store yarn...