This week’s post is all about how to create your own handmade Christmas Decorations including a garland and Christmas wreath. The post also includes a step-by-step photo tutorial on how to make pom poms.

Everybody loves a little DIY in December. Even people who typically don’t make anything else all year will find they develop an interest in cookie baking  or brownie making when Christmas rolls around.

Doing something crafty as the holiday season unfolds is definitely on most people’s radar.

Enter the humble Pom Pom who is sweeping the internet with all manner of mayhem this year. You know you want to do something fun and on-trend. So here’s your craft. Best of all, it’s something  everybody enjoys. Think about it. Do you really want to be friends with someone who doesn’t love pom poms?

So what do you need to make this cute bundle of yarn that seems to inspire smiles where it goes? Here’s your list:

1. Several colors of yarn
2. Scissors
3. Pom Pom Makers

There are tutorials on line where people use everything from cardboard to fork tines to their own hands to DIY pom poms. And those are fine methods.

Me? I like my projects to be more consistent and finished looking. Even if it is “just” a pom pom. That’s why I recommend getting your own Clover Pom Pom makers. They’re under $10 for a set of 2. Michael’s carries the Small and Medium sets. If you use coupons, you can get both sets for under ten bucks. This is not an expensive thing.

If you ever want to get into making hats, you will want these to make the really fluffy consistently sized Poms.

Also, invest in a nice set of sewing scissors that you use ONLY for cutting your yarn. Your hands will thank you when it comes time to cut the wraps and trim the poms into perfects spheres.

For this tutorial, I used Heartland Yarn from Lion Brand. It’s a worsted weight yarn which has a lot of application. I loved the colors and the heathered look of it. All the colors worked well together, and that was important to me.

There are a number of holidays in December, and I found this line had colors that would work with all of them. I personally celebrate Christmas, but since I’m sort of unconventional I like to work in all of the colors.

The point is that I thought this line would probably make everybody happy, and it’s easy to obtain. Your local craft store should have plenty of Heartland in stock right now. Craft store yarn is perfect for pom pom crafts.

All the colors in this line play so well together! Don’t you love the harmonious way they all just go together? Sort of how we wish the world could be.

Somebody queue the Don Draper fantasy where he conjured up the famous Coke commercial.

Personally, I would substitute pom poms for soda, but who can resist a chance to see Don one more time? Ok, back to our regularly scheduled blog post……

If you’re curious about what we’re going to make with all these pom poms, let me give you a sneak peek right now!

I ask you, is that not adorable?  It’s the perfect adornment for any front door and especially for those of us who love to craft. It’s also easy enough the children can work on this as a family project. You would either want to supervise the littles with the scissors or have the teenagers do the cutting, but even the tiniest little hands can help wrap yarn on the pom pom makers. And teenagers generally do not complain about making pom poms and eating cookies.

You can also make a fun garland with the pom poms and some twine.

If you’ve never made pom poms, I’m going to share a photo based tutorial with you now. It essentially consists of wrapping the yarn, cutting it, tying it together so the strands don’t go everywhere, and then doing a final trim to even everything up.

Here’s your pom pom making tutorial! 

Select your yarn and the size pom pom maker you want to use.

Wrap the yarn all around the pom pom maker. The thicker and tighter you wrap the yarn, the denser and fluffier your pom pom will be.

Wrapping is done. Cut the project free from the skein.

You’re ready to cut the edges and get your pom pom show on the road!

Follow the channel on the pom pom maker and carefully snip the yarn all the way around.

How it looks when you’ve snipped the yarn all the way around. Don’t open it yet!

Cut a new piece of yarn from the skein that’s about 10″ long. Run it through the channel of the pom pom maker and tie the ends into a tight knot.

Now that you’ve tied the long piece of yarn around the cut pieces, your pom pom is secure and you can open the pom pom maker. Flip the wings out first and then gently pull it apart. Your pom pom will come right out!

Give your pom pom a nice little haircut to even it up. Don’t skip this part, because the pom poms never look all that good when they first come out of the maker. If you hold onto those longer ends that you used to tie off the short bits, you can use those tails to tie the pom onto various other things. For example, you can tie the pom onto the wreath, or onto your Christmas Tree of onto whatever else you might like to tie a pom pom onto.

For this project, I tied the pom poms onto the branches of the wreath. I used some other yarn bits to tie on the Jingle Bells and it gave me the cutest little Christmas wreath I’ve ever made!

For this Pom Pom Garland, I made pom poms in different sizes and in different colors. I threaded twine onto my tapestry needle and carefully ran the twine right through the middle of the poms. Then I gingerly slid the poms into the place I wanted them on the length of twine. I tied on some of those same little Christmas bells with other pieces of yarn. For this project, I cut the tails off the poms so I had perfectly round balls of fluff to deal with.

This gave me two super cute, rustic style projects. I think that’s pretty much ideal for Christmas. Because these handmade Christmas decorations are  fast and easy projects, they can literally be made on Christmas Eve when the children arrive for holiday vacation. This gives them something fun to do that’s a little bit different from stringing popcorn. And will probably keep them entertained for a while longer. This is always a good thing!

Happy Holidays to you all, and I hope you enjoy including these rustic Christmas decorations in your celebrations. As always, tag them on Instagram with #pattymacknits so we can all see!

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