hi guys it's Robert and today we're gonna be tackling the fine art of pom-pom making now I'm not referring to the large cheerleader style pom-poms I'm referring to the little fluffy ones that you make out of yarn and once you master their construction you're gonna find yourself wanting to use them in almost every craft project you make now the pom-poms I'm making today I'm gonna be using instead of bows on top of a series of gift boxes the gift boxes I'm using are a natural craft brown color so it's a nice contrast to that neutral I've selected a large variety of brightly colored yarns you can create a pom-pom out of almost any type of yarn when you go to your local craft store you'll find primarily wool cotton or what I'm using is actually a really thin three ply acrylic I found it works really well for this purpose now there are several methods to create a pom-pom but I have found hands-down the easiest way to do it is with a small investment in a little gizmo from the craft store called a pom-pom maker they come in packs of two they're typically under eight dollars even less if you have a coupon and they make the whole construction process really easy it's composed of two halves connected by a small metal rod in the center and then there are two pairs of semicircular arms that extend out from that it looks a little intimidating at first but we'll walk through it start by holding the pom-pom maker in one hand and extend out one pair of those arms take the yarn that you're gonna use and just start wrapping it around that pair the goal here really is just to fill in that entire arch with wrap yarn once you've done that fold the arms back in snip off the tail turn the maker around extend out that second pair and start all over again once you've wrapped the second pair you're gonna again fold those in trim off the tail and then turn it on to its side you're gonna see that between the two halves of the pom-pom maker is a convenient little Ridge that we're gonna use to cut the yarn so take a very sharp pair of scissors run it along that Ridge and cut the fibers all the way around once you've done that it's time to tie it off and what I like to use for tying off the pom-pom is a really strong thread it's called button and craft thread take a good length double it up slip it right into that channel wrap it around tie it off as tightly as you can wrap it around the other direction and then double knot it you really want to make sure that you do this step as tightly as you can because this is what's gonna hold your pom-pom together now that you've done that go ahead and open up both sets of arms already you can start to see the pom-pom forming and then separate the two halves and set the maker aside grab the pom-pom by the thread tails and give it a good shake it looks pretty good at this point but it's gonna look even better after we give it a little haircut we're gonna flatten the pom-pom into a little bit of a disc trim around it to make it into a little bit more of an accurate circle rotate the pom-pom a little bit flatten it into another disc and trim it again do this two or three times and then give it a good shake and you can see any stragglers that might need to be trimmed off the first pom-pom we made in a solid color I also want to show you how to make an ombre pom-pom ombre is basically a gradation of color and I'm gonna show you a very basic one done in three shades of pink now when you're wrapping the arms of the pom-pom maker all you need to do is wrap each third in a different color once you've done that you're gonna fold the arms in tie it off trim it just the way you did the first one now we're going to be using these instead of bows on top of a series of gift boxes to make the packaging a little bit more interesting I've wrapped the same colors we used in the hombre pom-pom in equal intervals around the box and tied them off we're gonna cinch them together at the top and then take the pom-poms by the thread tails and tie them on top it makes for such a cute gift package so I definitely hope you'll give this project a try thank you so much for watching and join us next time for another great DIY project