Pound Shop Pom Poms

I see them everywhere. Paper pom poms hanging off ceilings, in shops, in photoshoots, in people's homes...sweet, crisp bursts of colour adding a perfect zeitgeist hint of craftiness...and you know what? This interiors trend junky has gotta have them. 

So the question is buy or make? And on this budget month (is there any other type of month?!) coming up to Christmas I thought I'd have a go myself. Consulting my good friend the internet and with materials courtesy of Brixton's pound shops, I cobbled together some ideas to begin my adventure in pom pom making: 

I started with one pack of £1 (this is something we may regret later...) of regular tissue paper and split it up into pinky and greeny colourways, I had about 6 or 7 sheets for each pom pom. 

Then I had to work out how to do a concertina fold. It was pretty easy really, I just folded it about an inch and a half wide and kept on folding until I had run out of tissue paper.

Then I tied a bit of string around the middle...nice little bow tie effect here...

Then I snipped a round edge off the top of either end (of one of the pom poms - the other sadly forgotten/*tactically* left uncut for effect)

This is the stage that the cat started to get interested...

Then all I needed to do was separate each sheet of tissue paper and fluff up until it got all pom pom-y! 

All fairly easy, although either my cheap tissue paper or clumsy hands meant I did rip up my precious poms a bit while fluffing...

But in the end these beauties looks pretty...erm ok...I reckon if I pack in a few more sheets of tissue paper I could do a stirling job with these bad boys.

Here's a finished pom pom (cat for scale)

And both my crafty creations

After my first foray into the world of pom poms, I reckon I'm in, I'll keep making and won't be parting with my pennies to buy readymade. In fact I'm now planning on making some white tissue paper pom poms in many mini sizes for my Christmas decs this year. So lock up your tissue paper, this new pom pom queen is coming! 

(Links to the lovely websites that helped me out here and here - thank you!)