Our Baby’s 1st Birthday Party! (DIY Tissue Pom Pom)

Our sweet little Mira just turned one last month. I didn’t want to spend too much on decorations, so I made them myself, with the exception of some few things that I bought at the dollar store. We did buy a helium tank for $35 at Walmart. Our tank says it can blow up to 30-35 balloons. But we used ours to blow up about 40 and there’s still some left in the tank. I mean we can probably just get away with just blowing the balloons manually, which we did for some of them. But I just can’t resist the look of the balloons floating in the air with their ribbon tails dangling down. I don’t know about you, but for me there’s just something magical about it. So I’m quite happy with our $35 helium tank purchase.

I didn’t really have a specific theme in mind. I started making the tissue pom poms and then it just kind of went from there. I had bought a bunch of tissue papers for a previous project so I didn’t even have to buy them. I’ve looked at several instructions online on how to make these lovely pom poms, but here’s how I ended up making mine. 

TUTORIAL:

On my first attempt, I used the entire sheet (20 x 26 in size).

Step 1: Stack 10-20 sheets of paper. (I only used 10 sheets because I was trying to be frugal. But the more sheets you use, the fluffier your pom pom would look. So it’s up to you!).  From the bottom of your stack make 1 inch wide accordion folds, creasing with each fold. (I didn’t want to be bothered measuring things so I just eyeballed what an inch would look like. But feel free to use a ruler if you want). 

Step 2: Cut about 6 inches of twisty tie, slip over center of folded tissue and then twist to secure the tissue papers in place. Make a loop at the end. This will come in handy if you are planning to hang your pom poms. If they are not going to be hanged at all, you can skip this part.

Step 3: With scissors, trim ends of tissue into rounded or pointy shapes. (I prefer the soft look so I went for a rounded tip instead). 

Step 4: Separate layers, pulling away from center one at a time. (Be very gentle when you do this as they can easily rip if you rush this process. Take your time and relax! I know it can be time consuming but think how beautiful the result is when you are done. You can reward yourself with some chocolates when you are done if you want! And if some did get rip along the way, don’t fret. It’s not the end of the world. Just be careful on the next ones.)

Step 5: Feed a ribbon or a string into your twisty tie loop, and hang your lovely pom pom!

On my second attempt, I used 8 sheets of tissue paper and then folded them in half (crosswise: from the bottom up). Using the crease mark as a guideline, I cut my sheets in half. Now having 2 sets of 8, folding them crosswise accordion style, I was able to make 2 medium size pom poms that look like this. 

You can also combine different colored sheets if you want. After using just pure pink for my first 3 pom poms, I experimented in combining purple & white (mainly because I was running low on purple sheets) and absolutely loved the outcome! 

As a result, I made another pair in yellow and white.

Here’s what they look like hanging by our windows.