Today my friend Rachel of The Obriens has graciously agreed to share her pom pom necklace tutorial with us. Take it away, Rach...
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Hello there, all you lovely readers of Kacey's wonderful blog!
I was so excited when Kacey asked me to come up with a springtime tutorial to share over here at Stay-At-Home Artist! I get to craft AND blog - seriously, two of my favorite things! And to guest post over at Kacey's blog - I mean, c'mon, have you seen how talented the girl is? The
paintings and drawings, the
headbands in her etsy shop, and hello, that
craft room?! Swoon. From her stylin' outfits to her little red front door, the girl has got it going on.
Here's a tidbit about me:
1. The name's Rachel
2. Been married two years
3. Originally from GA (the accent likes to come out when I'm nervous - so if I was reading this out loud instead of typing it, it would probably be a lot harder to understand)
4. I love pickles. They are my favorite snack (don't judge me)
Alrighty then. Let's get on with this tutorial now, shall we?
It all started when I saw an innocent picture on pinterest.
I looked at it and immediately repinned it (you pinterest-ers out there know what I'm talking about). I absolutely had to have one of those necklaces. I mean, they were just so gorgeous, and so springtime-y. I knew that someday they would be mine.
See? Gorgeous and springtime-y.
Problem was, they were sold out (still are). But even if they weren't sold out, the bigger problem was that they cost money. I'm a college student. A married college student at that. Extra money to spend on nice jewelry (or nice anything) is kind-of a foreign concept to me right now. So I decided if I wanted the necklace, but wouldn't spend the money on it, I just needed to make it. I had made a pom pom necklace before using
Little Miss Momma's tutorial and I figured it would be easy to adapt the tutorial to make a single pom pom necklace.
These multi pom pom necklaces are all over the web. They are cute as all get out, but there was just something I didn't like about the tutorials. The back of the necklace is a giant chunk of felt. You can't see the felt at all, but it bugs me. For me, it's a little too messy. I wear my multi pom pom necklace all the time, but I cringe whenever I put it on or take it off and see that nasty felt mess on the back.
I needed a solution to have a cute, pom pom necklace that was clean and crisp with no felt on the back. So I came up with this tutorial to get the look I was going for.
To make the single pom pom necklace you will need:
please excuse the quality of my pictures. my camera is held together by tape. literally.
Fabric of your choice(I used an old shirt)
Scissors
A pen
Glue gun
A necklace chain and a round charm of some sorts (I picked this one up at Forever 21 - they have a lot of jewelry there for 99 cents)
While your glue gun is heating up, use your round charm as a guide to trace little circles over your fabric. I drew about 10 circles, then cut them out as I needed them. How many circles you need depends on how large your charm is (mine is a little over 1") and how tight you want your pom pom to look (I opted for a more spread-out feel, so I didn't use very many circles).
Once your circles are all drawn, cut them out. Don't worry about being precise - you want them to look messy. And cut inside of the circle - if you use a colored pen or sharpie and cut right along the lines you drew, you will have black, blue, red or whatever edges on your pom pom. You'll want to avoid that unless you are going for that look.
Next you want to pinch the center of the circle. Some people find it helpful to use a toothpick to push the center down. This is where you are making your pom pom. You kind of pinch it in the middle from all four sides, making it fluff up. The smaller your circles are, the harder it is to do. Try it a few times to make sure you have the hang of it.
If you need to, use the toothpick to "pinch" the middle of the circle. Once you have it pinched, remove the toothpick and "pinch" it from the other side, making a nice little pom pom.
Once you have the right form, take your hot glue gun and put a small drop of hot glue on the "pinched" bottom part of the pom pom. Be careful that you don't use too much hot glue - you want to avoid any clumpy-ness.
Before the hot glue dries, push the bottom of the pom pom onto the necklace. I like to start close to the middle and work my way out to the edges.
Keep making pom poms and gluing them onto the charm until the whole charm is covered. The more pom poms you add, the "tighter" the necklace will look. Don't worry about covering up every single spot of the charm - the pom pom edges flow out from the necklace and cover up open spots, especially the edges.
If some of your individual pom poms are higher than the rest, or they flow too far out from the edges, take your scissors and very carefully trim around the edge of the necklace. I just eye-balled it and cut the fabric where I thought it looked a little off.
And voila! You have your very own, very cute pom pom necklace!
I love that there is no felt whatsoever - just the back of the charm. And you can buy more charms, bigger or smaller, and replace or add to the necklace as you wish. And - in since the pom pom is on a charm and not a part of the necklace itself, you can go out and get a longer or shorter chain and switch out the pom pom whenever you want! It's the perfect accessory for that cute spring outfit you've been dying to wear.
Thanks for letting me guest post over here, Kacey! Enjoy the necklace, gals!
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Thanks so much for sharing, Rachel!
Don't you just love the smaller scale of her design?! Turns out, pom poms don't always have to be ginormous. I'm totally making one {or five} of these.
Be sure to stop by her blog, The Obriens. You'll find craftiness, good design, and all kinds of fun adventures!
