Craft: Eyelet Tissue Pom Poms (Tutorial)

I've had a bit of a fascination with eyelet, lace, doilies, and somehow hobnail milk glass fits in there too (see what I've been pinning). I guess it's about shades of white and texture. I think it's beautiful. I've always loved a restrained  color palette and it doesn't get much more restrained than shades of white!

I thought it would be fun to try a variation on the ever popular tissue poms (I used them here in the colored variety). I wanted them to look even more feminine, if that is possible, and thought: eyelet.

Eyelet is so gorgeous, don't you think?  I've been thinking about a party with all of these great, girly textures, but I'm not sure which of my girls' birthdays might be the best fit. 

Then I thought, why not try this out for a little tea party? Say, for Valentine's Day... Well Valentine's is behind us, at least for this year, but this party is still dangling in front of me. Perhaps with hearts and all:

If you want to make eyelet pom poms for your own celebration click to read the tutorial.

EYELET TISSUE POM POMS TUTORIAL

To make one you will need:

• A stack of 8 sheets of tissue paper (the standard rectangular shaped stuff--exact dimensions don't matter). You could probably use 10 sheets, but I wouldn't recommend using less...
• A pair of sharp scissors
• A standard hole punch
• A long twist tie for securing (this is my favorite way to do it, anyway...)

Start by aligning the edges of your stack of tissue paper as best you can, but it doesn't matter if it isn't perfect. Then make a 1" fold down one long edge of the stack. I hold the stack and fold up from the bottom away from myself.

Flip the whole stack over and fold up one inch again. It will look like this:

Continue making 1" accordion style folds in this manner until the entire stack is folded. If the last fold is a bit shy of 1" that is just fine.

Now take a pair of scissors and trim the edges so they are rounded.

Unfold, and using your hole punch, punch little holes out of the stack of tissue around the perimeter of the scalloped edges. I punched one hole at the top center of each curve and then one on each side equal distances apart. Then I punched one in the crease.

Then add one other hole in the center of each scallop--I aligned mine with the punched holes in the creases. You could of course do this in any order you prefer! (I love the resulting stack of punched tissue circles. You could use this for confetti! Wish I'd thought of that before tossing them...)

Now refold the tissue along the 1" fold lines and secure in the middle with a twist tie.

Turn the stack on its side, fan out the folds on one side and carefully separate the tissue layers. Work on one side of the pom pulling apart all the layers (gently so they don't tear) until they are spread in a 180-degree shape, then work on the other side of the pom...

...until you have a beautiful spherical shape. I just love these! Such a thrill to make something so beautiful out of humble materials.

Enjoy!