Day Fourteen: Tissue Paper Pom-Poms: Party Origami or Recyclable Toys?

We are hosting a few outdoor parties this Spring, so I needed some cute, inexpensive decorations that I could produce (several dozen) myself...and ideally I could use for both parties.  Double-duty decorations, if you will.

I decided on Martha's Tissue Paper Pom-Poms  because:
a) I have lot of tissue paper on which to practice
b) tissue paper is cheap, and
c) who doesn't think these things are adorable??


I had read the directions last night, so I started today by separating twenty pieces of tissue paper from the larger stack.

I then folded the paper, accordion-style....

 ....until I had something that resembled a large, elementary butterfly.

It was at this point that I re-read the directions and realized that I only needed eight sheets of tissue paper per pom-pom, not twenty.

I hear your memory is the first thing to go...

Thankfully, I was able to separate my first effort into two pom-poms, and move on to snipping the ends of each butterfly wing into little points.  It was very satisfying to pull apart and admire your handiwork...sort of like those paper snowflakes you made last Christmas as a kid.

Then I pulled the layers apart to reveal an adorable pom-pom:

Ta-da!!

Note:  After the first mistake, I'm skipping right over the part where I ripped a few of these by being a little too aggressive with this last step.  Consider this a warning.

My kids were in absolute awe of these pom-poms, which I had teasingly hung from the chandelier above their heads.  I made two smaller ones that I used to bribe them to finish dinner.  (What?)  As I was finishing the second one, my two-year-old daughter noticed it looked like a "Cafe" (she meant "bouquet") and stated emphatically that as *she* was the princess of the house she should have the "Cafe" (bouquet) for herself.

Princess (in costume) with her "Cafe" (bouquet):

My five-year-old son used his pom-pom for batting practice, which was fine by me:  it's not like tissue paper is going to break a window, is it?

And tomorrow, when the new toys are torn to shreds, I can just throw the whole lot into the recycling. How's that for double-duty?