I kept seeing these pretty tissue paper pom poms in all of my crafty RSS feeds and thought, “Those look simple enough even for me to make.  How hard could it be?”.

image via my whimsy [flikr]

I had visions of little pom pom garlands wrapped around our tree and hanging festively in the windows so I went out and picked up some red and gold tissue paper.  I found a great tutorial at Imperfectly Beautiful with pictures big enough I could see what I needed to be doing.  I wanted them to be all different sizes, so I got busy cutting squares and stacking them.  Then it was time for the simple accordion fold.  “This is so easy!  I’m going to succeed at a something crafty!”  Instead of using floral wire, I used string to tie around the center so I could easily keep adding to my garland.  Then you are supposed to trim the ends in a round or pointy shape [something I forgot the first two tries - yes, I failed] and start carefully pulling away the layers one by one until you have a fluffy pom pom.  I was pulling too hard and some paper ripped and then they just ended up looking like flowers [they weren't very round].  I kept telling myself, “Come on, Shannon.  This is kid’s stuff.  You can do it.”.  I gave my first tries to my daughter [who is one and probably more competent at making these than I was at this point] who shredded them all over the floor so I could have the joy of finding bits of tissue paper all over the house.  [Yeah, I should have seen that coming, but I was too busy trying to make just ONE of these things.]

Eventually, I got one pretty nice pom pom and one smaller flower looking pom – not exactly a garland.

They are still sitting on my dining room table just daring me to try again.  In the end I sat down and started cutting snowflakes [based on this tutorial].  You really can’t go wrong there.  I put a few on the tree and in the window and called it a day.  [The little fence is so Ava and Biggles {our cat} can't get to the tree - not very festive, but sometimes practicality wins.]

Where do the crafty people find the time?  They must not have small children or maybe they stay up all night like little elves thinking of cute stuff to make that will make someone like me feel inferior.  But if I can’t make it, someone can and then people like me can just buy it.  If any of you are interested in doing a guest blog craft tutorial, let me know!

Happy Holidays! XO