How to Make a Paper Christmas Pom-Pom

 

 

I used white and silver paper cut into strips to make this pom-pom. Paper in other traditional Christmas colours of gold, red, and green would look great too, although this doesn’t just have to be for Christmas-time decoration, as a pom-pom in multi-colours, or many pom-poms in single colours would look equally lovely. Cutting the many strips of paper to make this pom-pom takes a bit of time, but punching the holes and threading the papers onto the cotton is quick to do.

Please view my related post on how to make a Christmas wreath out of strips of paper that uses a similar technique.

 

 

EQUIPMENT needed to make a Paper Christmas Pom-Pom:

 

Sheets of A4 white paper

Silver paper

White crochet cotton

Needle

Paper cutter

2 buttons

Ribbon

Crop-A-dile, or other hole punching tool

[A ‘Crop-A-dile’ is a tool used in scrapbooking that is made by the company We R Memory Keepers (the tool with the pink handles in the photo below).]

 

 

1. Cut sheets of white A4 paper into 2.5cm (1 inch) wide strips along the short side of the sheet. Cut silver strips the same size.
2. Fold the paper strip in half lengthwise and punch a hole about 12mm in from the edge of the paper, as in the following photo:

 

[This is using the Crop-A-dile tool, which was excellent for this task because it has a built in adjustable depth gauge, making it easy to get every hole punched in the same spot, I set the depth gauge to 12mm, and used the small 1/8” (3mm) hole-punch]

3. Thread crochet cotton onto a needle and double the thread, so you have one end that has two loose threads.
4. On the end of the cotton that has the two loose ends, take a 2-holed button and poke a thread through each hole and tie securely with a double knot underneath the button. This will stop the strips of paper slipping off the end.
5. Thread the hole-punched papers over the needle. Every fifth paper I added was a silver one. Keep threading the paper strips on, as in the following photo:

 

6. When enough paper strips have been threaded on to form a nice shaped round pom-pom, cut the loop of cotton where the needle is. Adjust the papers so the silver ones are evenly spaced. Before the papers are pushed down to form the final circular pom-pom, check to make sure that the papers are distributed evenly all around to avoid one area having too many papers and another area not enough, or the pom-pom will be skewed to one side. When adjusted, push the papers together down the thread to form a ball. Thread a small 2-holed button onto the cotton and secure with a double knot, as in the following photo:

 

7. The pom-pom should look round and even:

8. To finish, tie a colourful ribbon into a bow and place at the top of the pom-pom.