DIY: Festive Felt Garland

I’ve become pretty in love with Martha Stewart’s tissue paper pom poms after Kaila taught me how to make them myself.  We had them at our housewarming party, my birthday and then I made the wreath out of them.

It got me thinking about making pom poms out of other materials.  I tried with magazine paper, but it was way too stiff.  FAIL.  Then I searched pom pom garland on yahoo and came across an adorable fleece pom garland.  When I was at Michael’s I found precut sheets of felt that were inexpensive so I thought I’d give it a try.  It was a little stiff, but I came to realize it depended on the size of your strips, how thick you layered them {no more than 2} and how closely you cut.

Let’s get started:

Supplies. Felt sheets in multiple color.  Yarn.  Fabric Scissors.

Fold the felt over lengthwise twice so that you can cut four strips.

I take my strip and fold it over again for the first cut so I can use it as a guide of how close I am to the center of the strip.  Once I make the first cut I open it up again and make my cuts all the way down one side of your strip.

You want to cut close to the center so that when you tie your string around the center the pom will open up.  If not it won’t unfold and get a circular shape.

Once you’ve cut up both sides of your strip you’re going to roll the strip up into itself.

Measure out how long you want your garland to be and cut your string.  Give yourself some extra yardage for wiggle room since you’ll be wrapping the string around all the puffs and knotting them off.  As you can see it’s not very puff-like at first, but once you tie the string around the felt pull VERY tight.

If you pull tight your puff will start to resemble this.  I adjust it myself as well to get a desired look.

TA DA!  I experimented with the widths of the strips I cut, but the slimmer they were the puffier they seemed to get.  I also rolled up two different color strips to get varying looks.

Contact me with any questions. :)