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Ok, we know we can’t make a nursery pom-pom DIY quite like Dana Haim can. But….a girl sure can try! Get your nesting fingers ready and follow these 10 easy steps to create a beautiful pom-pom installation for your baby’s room. And check out Dana’s baby’s nursery over here!

What: A handmade nursery pom-pom DIY installation

Difficulty: Not difficult at all, just time consuming and requires a certain amount of practice and patience.

Materials:

-A variety of yarns, ideally wool and fluffy yarns. Not cotton, silk, or rayons.

-Sharp scissors

-Thin cardboard or cardstock

-Strong cord or string for assembling the garlands

-Thick craft needles

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How to do it:

1- Create your template for the pom-poms using the thin cardboard. Draw out a C shape like the one in the photo and cut out two identical C’s that you will use TOGETHER to wind your yarn on.

2- Take the tail of your yarn and start winding the yarn with very even and not too tight tension around the templates. You will continue to do this until you have a bulge like dense amount of yarn covering your shape. You can cut the yarn and start a new color if you want to add some stripes or marbling to the finished product. You can also wind multiple colors at the same time to expedite the process and add a kind of speckled pattern to the pom. I encourage you to experiment with different colors to see what the various effects will be. You don’t need to tie any knots when you change the color, just simply cut the yarn and start winding with a new color. Remember to not wind with tight tension as you will later be cutting through this yarn and if its too tight, it will be very difficult to cut through.

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3- Once you have gotten it to your desired thickness you will cut a separate piece of strong yarn to be used for tying it all together, put it aside, but nearby.

4- Take the end the of the C shapes and gently split them down the middle, creating an area that you can slide your scissors through and start delicately cutting through the middle of the bulge of yarn, from one end around the round section of the C to the other. Everything should be loose now and about to fall through the open section of the C, don’t let it.

5- Flip the C shape and push all those loose ends as much as you can into the open section of the C so that you don’t lose those yarns.

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6- Take the tying string that you set aside and protect those loose threads by wrapping that string around, back through the middle of the templates and tie one set of very tight double knots at the middle section of the round part of the C. Then take that same string back around to the open section of the C and tie a second set of tight double knots at the open section of the C, securing all your loose yarn.

7- At this point make sure you cut all the yarn that was wound around the template, and you should be able to easily slide out the templates and have a shaggy pom. Shake it out and make sure its fluffy.

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8- Now start trimming carefully around the whole pom-pom, you can keep it as shaggy as you want, or you can keep trimming. The more you trim, the rounder you can get it. This is where the patience kicks in. You can also save those trimmings for other craft projects later on. It can get messy here, so best practice is to trim directly into a bag or trash can.

9- Once you have a group of poms that you made, you can string them on your cord however you please. You can string them like beads, or you can tie little clusters of knots that work as stoppers if you want spaces between poms or groups of poms. I like to use a thick crafting needle and thread through the middle of the pom-pom with my needle and chord. This is how you start to create your garlands.

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10- Once you have your garlands done, you can arrange nails on the wall, in any configuration you want and simply tie the garlands to the nails. You can have them hang straight or you can drape them, scallop them, hang them from the ceiling, hang them from a branch, or dowel. Your choice!

Happy pom-pomming!

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Photography by Lauren Crew for Well Rounded.