DIY Pom Pom Decorations

Yes, I know what you're thinking. I'm crazy. I still have one and a half months till Z's first birthday and I'm ALREADY making decorations. For a birthday party for a 1 year old. For a birthday party that will ONLY have close family for guests. Close family that visit us nearly every week anyway and so this 'party' isn't really anything special since they'll probably be coming over that day anyway.

But one thing you should know about me, and I'm sure you'll figure it out over the next 1.5 months. I'm a bit crazy about parties. And decorating. And birthdays and cakes and dinner parties and tea parties and all of the above.

The invitations I created with Photoshop. Private information blanked out for obvious reasons.

So. That should just about bring you up to date. Onto the pom poms.

I'm not going to bother doing a tutorial on these pom poms. Do a Google search and you'll find hundreds already out there. The dimensions I used when cutting out the tissue paper for these pom poms was 10cmx20cm. That gave me the perfect mini pom poms to decorate each place setting at the table. I changed my mind about the color scheme after ordering the invitations so instead of making these in navy blue I used a pale Tiffany blue.

Actually, that's a lie. I spent 3 hours making a whole bunch of these in navy blue and silver only to decide afterwards that I didn't actually like the navy blue, or the size, or the pom poms themselves, so I started again. DH told me I was crazy. My FIL just made a couple of patronizing comments about how it was all a waste of time for a 1 year old anyway. I ignored them both.

I made half of the pom poms with curved outer edges and the other half with spiked edges. The first of the spiky pom poms came out awesome, but the way they were cut made an optical illusion that made them look smaller than the other pom poms so I had to make less dramatic spikes on the rest of them. In the end you can barely see the difference. If I were to do it again I would have cut the spiky ones as 11cmx22cm and made the spikes sharper.

I'll have to do a follow-up to show you how I intend on using the mini pom poms.