One of my favourite things about the Christmas season is the decorating our home. I love putting up the tree & adding little Christmas touches all around the house, so cute! However, when it comes to taking them down in January, the enthusiasm begins to wane & it can seem like an endless task. This got me thinking how great it would be to have some non-traditional Christmas decorations with a neutral design, some that could stay up until mid-January without anyone judging us for not taking down our decorations! Doesn’t that sound great? Well after pondering for a while I thought why not make my own, so I did and they turned out so well that I thought I would share them with you today. Garlands are such a great, no hassle way of decorating your home and now you can make one (or more) too with today’s do-it-yourself circle pom-pom garland.
What You Need Will Need | Scissors | Needle & Thread | Coloured Card | A Packet of Pom Poms | Sticky Tape (Optional) | About 30 mins
Your first task is to choose the colour scheme for your garland. The best way to do this is to think about where it is going to go when you have finished creating it, and also what you are going to use it for. If you are going to hang it as a Christmas decoration, or even on your tree, you may want to go for a red and gold colour scheme or maybe a white and green one, however if you are going to have it hanging above your bed all year round then you may want to go for a scheme that matches your bedroom, or is calming. The possibilities are really endless, you can do whatever you want! I chose a pink and grey theme because I am ALL about the pink right now & what better colour to go with it than grey? Love it!
So, how do you make these things? First you want to take your piece of A4 card and measure out some rectangles horizontally across the paper. These strips of paper will be used to make the circle element of your garland, so think about how big and wide you want them to be – the longer & wider the strips the larger & thicker the circles ( and vice versa). I decided to make my strips of card 2.5cm wide by 13cm long, to create a middle sized circle of quite a small thickness. Once you have drawn out your template, cut out your rectangles and bend them into circles.
There are two ways to attach ends of your card rectangle to each other to form a circle; the easy, slightly less aesthetically pleasing way, and the harder far prettier but more fiddly way. The former involves simply taking a thin piece of sticky tape and securing it around the join – simple & easy, as shown above. The latter involves joining the two ends together by sewing through the paper with your needle & thread. Both ways work brilliantly & it really is up to you to decide how to create your circle depending on the end look you want to achieve & how long lasting you want your garland to be. I chose to do it with sticky tape as I am going to be making a lot of garlands over the christmas season & so don’t want to be spending hours sewing. Sticky tape is definitely the quicker route!
So, now you have all of the separate components of your garland, let’s put it together. All you need to do is to take one of your circles and pierce through the side of it with your needle & thread, towards the centre of the circle. Then grab a pom pom and push the needle through that too. Finally, take your needle & thread through the opposite side of the circle and voila! You have your first garland section, now all you need to do is repeat this process & you will have your very own festive, or otherwise, garland in no time. As you are creating each segment remember to keep pushing them down the sting, other wise you will be left with a big clump of segments. The only thing that is left to do is hang it up, give everything a little tweak to make sure it is in the right place & admire your hard work. And there you have it!
Want to get a bit more creative with this? There are ways to make it even more fun, if not time consuming – but if you love crafting, or pom poms then why not give it a go! One way to make this a bit more creative would be to draw a pattern onto your circle strips before cutting them out, leaving a gorgeous pattern on the inside or outside of your circles, depending on which way you choose to bend them when creating your orbit. What a nice touch! Or why not glue two different coloured strips together, creating a double coloured circle, or use different coloured pom poms. Alongside this you could also switch up the colour/ type of thread you are using. The possibilities for making this garland individual really are endless & it will look amazing in whatever colours or patterns you choose.
Haven’t got your pom pom fill from this post? Not to worry, earlier in the year I demonstrated how you can make your very own – DIY Pom Pom Cushion -. I mean, let’s be realistic, can you really ever have enough homemade pom pom items… I think not. Head on over to that post to use up the leftover pom poms & have even more crafting fun. Enjoy!
Love Holly x