Doc and I are hosting a party in a couple of weeks and I have several do-it-yourself projects I'm working on to prepare for it. I'm going to share tutorials for some of these projects in case any of you are planning a party anytime soon. These are all easy and cheap and anyone can do them! If you know me at all, you know I like to pick a theme and go all out with it. When you walk in our house, I want you to really be able to tell what the color scheme is. For this party, aqua and red are the colors of choice.
For this tutorial, we're going to make pom-pom toothpicks. Actually, I did pom-pom skewers, but they're basically the same thing just different sizes.
Supplies needed: tissue paper scissors toothpicks/skewers tape
First, I cut a strip of tissue paper. The width of your strip depends on how big you want your pom-pom to be. This one was about, oh, 2-ish inches wide.
Then, I folded the strip in half long ways.
Now, you obviously won't need your tissue paper to be that long for each pom-pom, so you can cut it down into smaller pieces. I made mine roughly 4 inches long.
The next step is the only kinda tedious part. You want to fringe your folded strip of tissue paper. I chose to cut from the folded side, because I liked the look of the fringe being folded over. You could easily do the two raw edges if you'd prefer. Cut slits in your paper as close or as far apart as you'd like, but don't cut all the way through. Leave about a quarter of an inch uncut along the opposite edge.
Once you've got the entire strip fringed, you're ready to grab your toothpicks or skewers. This is what I used.
Tear a small piece of tape and use it to tape one end of the uncut edge to the tip of your skewer.
And now it's time for the fun part - just roll it up!
When you get it completely rolled up, you'll need to secure the loose end with another small piece of tape.
And for the very last step, just pull down some of the fringe so they fan out and make a pom-pom.
And you're done! Easy, right?
Here are two of my completed ones:
The one on the left started with a strip of tissue paper that was pretty long but not very wide. The pom-pom on it is very thick, but not very big. The one on the right had a shorter strip of tissue paper, but it was wider and made longer fringe. I like the one on the right better, I think.
Once you get set up and in the rhythm, these don't take too much time at all. I sat on the couch and made mine two different nights while watching tv.
I think if you used toothpicks they would look really cute stuck in a piece of sausage and cheese. Or maybe a stack of grapes or marshmallows or something like that. I'll show you how I plan on using mine later, so stick around.