Me and pom poms are not friends.  I’m not sure where our relationship hit the skids because I remember doing pom pom crafts with the girls I babysit and don’t remember having issues but sometime between then and now we seem to have had a falling out.

For the most part this is not an issue as I just don’t use them.  But, I talked about the Bunny Nuggets I made for my goddaughters last week and all bunnies require a pom pom tail, right???

My problem was twofold – my pom poms kept falling apart and were way too big for my tiny bunny nuggets.  When I first started, I had two pom pom makers – the traditional circle one and another one that I can’t figure out how to use.  I was out at the big box craft store and picked up the Clover pom pom maker (of the makers it is definitely my favorite).

I don’t enjoy the circle version because I never know how much yarn to cut off and I don’t like pulling it in and out.  The purple one I have no idea how to use and the directions have disappeared.  I loved the Clover one but the resulting pom pom was still too big.

When the makers were failing me I decided to do a little online research and came up with some interesting techniques.  I found instructions on using toilet paper rolls, forks and a yarn winder.  All of those seemed like good ideas but none would make one small enough for my tiny bunnies.  I also found instructions for using your fingers – brilliant!  I tried two fingers and then just my pinky finger and all were still too big.

Two fingers

Pinky

Based on the research results I came up with my own idea and I thought it was brilliant!  I used 2 size 2 dpns and wrapped the yarn around those and then slid the tying piece of yarn between the two needles to secure the pom pom.  It seemed work.

It was really hard to cut the ends (and I was not at home with my really sharp scissors which might have helped).  I thought they turned out pretty cute.

But by the time I got them home and went to sew them on, they were starting to fall apart so I scrapped them and ended up using store bought pom poms I had in my craft stash.

The funny thing about this whole saga is just days before I decided to make these bunnies Arne & Carlos released a video on how to make pom poms and I thought – everyone knows how to make pom poms, what a strange tutorial.  The video is super entertaining but lesson learned – pom poms are harder to perfect than they appear!  So, if you have any great ideas about making awesome pom poms I would love to hear them!