HobbyCrafting For The Uncrafty: Pom Pom Book Marks

For me, crafting is a little bit like exercise: you know you should do it but you really don’t want to – it’s messy, difficult, and on the odd occasion it ends in tears.

Take glitter, for example. Barring a couple of mess-loving toddlers I literally know nobody who has ever had a good experience with glitter outside of a Mariah Carey movie. It’s gritty, it’s tiny, it gets everywhere, it’s a nightmare to hoover up. Sure it’s pretty, but what kind of nonsense material evades a Dyson?! The mind boggles.

The fact I have two children is often at odds with my aversion to crafting. They love an afternoon with a stack of cardboard and some PVA, go wild for poster paints and can’t get enough of Hobbycraft, so I try and suck it up just for them. And by suck it up I mean I get some felt tip pens and stickers out once a month and half heartedly do some colouring in or make a thank-you card. I wish I could say it sates their need to craft, but they still beg me to get creative with the glue gun.

So when the lovely people of said Hobbycraft dropped me a note to ask if I fancied doing some crafting with the kids I said sure – as long as they didn’t mind me coming up with an activity that those of us with fingers for thumbs – that’s me! – could do.

And they said sure, knock yourself out with some easy papercraft. So after some Googling and a little effort trying to remember my own handmade bits from my girlhood time in the brownies I came up with the Pom Pom bookmark. A craft that even I can heroically complete.

We started by ordering our bits and bobs; we needed cardboard, wool and some decorations, so it was a pretty low-key list, and I popped this bargain Giant Box of Craft (just a fiver!) in our trolley too, to give us a few extra options when it came to decorations. I went for a purpley-blue word theme and chose some brilliant letter tile stickers that I knew Elfie would love (she’s a scrabble champion).

Here’s how we did it: SO easy, and nobody cried. Plus loads less sweaty than exercise: success!!!

Pom Pom Book Mark

You will need: 
Cardboard (I chose purples and blues)
Wool (we used this great multicoloured yarn)
Decorations like stickers or glitter (argh!), and glue
A hole punch, or something sharp to make a hole in cardboard
Scissors

Method:
1. Start by making your pom pom! Take your hand (or that belonging to your kid) and wrap the wool around it 80 times, fairly loosely. This bit was so easy that even Hux did it without getting bored. Lay a piece of wool on the table, about 12cm long. Take the bound handful of wool and lay it on top of the wool and tie a knot tightly in your 12cm piece so the handful of wool is fanned out at the bottom and the top, as below. Leave the long piece of wool long for the time being.

2. Give your pom pom a hair cut! Snip it open so it starts looking, you know, like a pom pom. Keep snipping around so it’s all even.

3. Use your scissors to cut your cardboard into a bookmark shape. We just stuck to the width of the card. Use the hole punch or your sharp thing to punch a hole in the top.

4. Now for the fun bit! Get your decorations out and go wild – Elfie spelled out her name from the scrabble tiles and stuck a flower on the bottom.

5. Snip your wool to a preferred length and tie it to your bookmark through the hole you’ve punched. And voila! Your very own pom pom bookmark. And nobody cried – congratulations!

Huge thanks to Hobbycraft for helping us craft for the afternoon without going mad (or clogging up the vacuum cleaner). Not only did we have a lovely time together, but I’ve almost erased all my burning-finger glue gun memories from last year’s Easter Bonnet fiasco.

Huge thanks to Hobbycraft for working with MTT on this sponsored post.