I am so obsessed with the pompon garland from Anthropologie and this wonderfully colorful version by My Paper Crane that I went to the store to buy pompons and make my own version. But when I got there I found that I couldn’t do it – I just didn't want to spend the money. This year I’m trying to decorate the house and make (almost) all of my gifts without spending a lot of money. Somehow, buying up those bags of pompons was crossing the line. So… a challenge sprung up in my mind. How could I create a pompon garland without pompons? After seeing the amazing things that Hillary did with her cotton balls I had my answer!
My home made version of imitation pompon garland uses 1 bag of 200 100% cotton balls, red food coloring and tea bags (for dying) and fishing line for stringing them all together. I used three different teas: Blueberry Green Tea (lavender), Chamomile Lemon (tan/yellow-ish) and Prince of Whales (medium/dark brown). I soaked each batch for about 20-30 minutes to get as much color as possible. The last batch didn’t absorb as much first three or four – maybe the color was diluted after so many batches or it could have been because the water had gotten cold? I only dyed half of the cotton balls, then I soaked the remainder in plain water and form them into balls to dry.
Here they are on the drying rack after I’ve squeezed out the water and rolled them into balls.
I have to confess that I was impatient and put them into a low temp oven to dry faster. I think that resulted in the caramel corn-like effect with the dye (somewhat visible in the picture at the top). I also strung some of them before they were 100% dry and that made getting the needle through a million times harder. Thank goodness for my thimble! They puffed up a little more once they were completely dry. I think you could roll them into even smaller balls and they might come out smaller – but the look is very cotton candy and I love it at night!
I have a very small tree - Mark and I both love Charlie Brown trees. The garland covers about 2/3 of my tree so if you wanted to do this and cover a larger tree I'd use two bags of cotton balls. I'd also use larger bowls next time so that I could dye more in each batch. And finally... here is a picture of my little bird – so far the only other ornament on the tree.
