It’s been in full force Holiday mode over here in the studio and I wanted to share with you some of the fun holiday decor I’ve been working on – pom – pom felt toppers. As you can imagine (being a gift studio and all) I spend a great deal of time thinking about ways to reinvent and accessorize gifts. There’s nothing I love more than a pile of materials and a few hours of making beautiful messes in the workshop. I thought I’d share a little DIY of one of those messes that turned into something quite sweet. These are really simple and a fun way to make every day craft materials feel a bit more chic.

Materials: yarn//felt//scissors//glue gun//cover weight metallic paper//Martha Stewart paper punch

1. cut your felt into approximately 2″ wide x 3″ long strips.  2. keep your cover weight paper as large pieces, this allows you to make mistakes! It takes a bit of effort to get the rhythm of the paper punch down so give yourself room to play a bit.

3. Take your yarn and cut two 5 yard pieces. You can experiment with the length of the pieces, as these will determine the size of your pom pom. Longer = BIGGER. Shorter = SMALLER. For this project, the pom-pom should be approx. 1.5″ diameter when finished. 4. Cut another piece of yarn about 4 – 5″ long. This piece will tie your pom-pom together. 5.Wrap your yarn around a 2 ” base of something. Literally. You can wrap it around your fingers, or for something a little more consistent, cut a 2″ piece of cardboard or stiff paper and wrap it around that. Wrap until your yarn is fully used. 6. Now here the trickiest part: slide your yarn off of the base. You will have a little yarn ‘o’ or donut. Keep it that way – you don’t want it to come unraveled. 7. Tricky part #2 - tie the 4 – 5″ piece of yarn around the center of your yarn bundle. Tie it tight – this is the center of the pom pom! 8. Once you’ve secured the center, snip through at the end of the looped edges. You now have a pom – pom. Fluff it out and make it beautiful!

9. Get to know your paper punch. Play around a bit and make sure you have the pressure bit under control. Once you do, slide your cover weight paper in the punch. I punched a series of strips and cut down the center to create the ornate band below. The finished strip should be about 3″, with 1/2″ of the paper at the bottom uncut (this will be your swallow tail) and 1″ at the top uncut (you will glue your pom pom to this part).

10. Once you have mastered the punch and you’re feeling good about your paper band, lay it on top of your felt strip. Make sure the bottoms line up evenly. Snip em’ into a swallow tail…an inverted V. Snip snip. Add a tiny bit of glue at the top of the paper to affix it to the felt. (This will be covered by the pom pom later on)  12. Make a 3/4″ fold at the top end of the felt (this will be your loop for your ribbon to slip into so you can tie it on your gift). Add a light bit of glue from your glue gun to anchor it down on the backside. 

13. Now, simply glue your pom- pom at the top on the face of your felt et voila!