Pom-Pom Garland

It’s that time of year for congratulations! Graduations, weddings and birthdays- we have 2 birthdays coming up.
We made a congratulations pom-pom garland for my son in honor of his 6th grade graduation last week which was a big deal for him. It turned out bigger than I thought it was going to but it looks great and he was really surprised. And I had some great help from my mom.

Materials:
Cereal box weight cardboard
Printed out message (letters)
Glue stick
Tacky glue (love Aleenes)
Pom-poms (use your craft coupons!)
Sponge brush
Wax paper
Scissors
Hole punch
String
Paper clip
Masking tape

I thought I could just use a pre-made garland sign like the one in the picture above but after laying it out, I decided that my collection of pom-poms- while vast- has a lot of big poms so I printed out my own letters in word with 600 font- using the outline mode to save ink.

I started the project using card stock but the paper isn’t heavy enough and curled with the wet glue so I changed to cereal box weight cardboard (you could use any recycled light weight cardboard).

Print out each letter, roughly cut it out then add it to the non-printed side of the cardboard using glue stick (lightly tacking)- I chose the non printed side so the pom-poms would stick better later.

Carefully trim around each letter; for letters that have enclosed shapes – make a slit to cut out the middle then use masking tape on the back to hold the letter together.

Remove and discard all the paper letter templates.
 
Make 2 holes in each cardboard letter- that might mean in 2 sections of the letter- as with an N or along the top as with the letter S.

Tear off a piece of wax paper for each letter.
 

Work with one cardboard letter at a time; place the letter on a piece of wax paper and add the tacky glue- spread it with the sponge brush – don’t worry about the holes.

 

 

Add the pom-poms; if one doesn’t stick – you can dip it in the glue and stick it on or fill the space in later.
*I’d start with the bigger pom-poms then fill in with the smaller ones.

Set the letter to the side to dry.
Move onto the next letter and repeat until all the letters are covered in pom-poms.
Allow the glue to dry completely.


Stretch out a looooong piece of string; I like string because the letters will stay in place and won't slide together which happens when they're strung on filament (speaking from experience). 

 
Open a paper clip and tape one end of the string to it- use it as a needle to the poke the string in and out of the letter holes until they're all strung- then trim the string so that it can hang the letters with some room to shift.

If I were to do it again- I’d use smaller pom-poms maybe in the same color family and taller, slightly skinnier letters.

 

Here it is hanging in his room (which he cleaned!)