Do-It-Yourself Tissue Paper Pomanders

Many of you still ask me about those infamous orange pomanders I made for my ceremony. Today I am going to share how to make them, but be warned that this is a labor of love 🙂

What you will need:
– 18 gauge wire
– tissue paper
– scissors
– 5″ Styrofoam balls
– Hot glue

Step One
For the ribbon handle, I cut 10″” of wire, folded in half, and then I twisted around the ribbon (see picture below). I suggest using a skewer to poke a hole on the styrofoam ball before placing the wire with hot glue.

Step Two
How to make the little pom poms:
I followed instructions from the Martha Stewart website which can be viewed by clicking here. I used the same measurements as for the napkin rings, 10 inches by 5 inches wide with four sheets stacked.

– Cut your tissue into 10×5 inches rectangles.
– Accordion fold the shorter side, approximately 3/8″ – 1/2″ per fold.
– Fold the wire over the middle and twist.
– Cut wire approximately 1/2? from edge.
– Round the corners of the tissue paper.
– Begin pulling the layers away from each other and toward the middle of the wire.

1.Cut your paper into 10×5 pieces. (approx. 2 hours with a paper cutter)
2.Cut your wire. I used 4″” pieces. (approx. 3 hours)
3. Fold your paper. Use approx. 3/8″” accordion folds. Wrap a piece of wire around the middle and twist the ends together. (approx. 13 hours)
4.Puff flowers. Gently pull apart the pieces of tissue and make it pretty.

Step three
Continuing from the last image above, I left an extra 1/2″” of wire from the pom poms in order to attach them onto the ball, seen on the picture above. I also used hot glue to secure them in place.

I used different shades of orange paper to give them more depth. I attached the pom poms tightly together, but you can use less flowers if you would like.

You can also make wreaths doing the same process! Styrofoam wreaths can also be found at any craft store.

How much paper do I need?

Each 20″x30″ sheet of tissue paper makes 6 10″x5″ strips (same measurements as in Martha Stewart website). Four strips of 10×5 makes one flower. I used about 40 (I think) for each pomander.
4 strips of 5×10= 1 flower
4 sheets 20×30=6 flowers
Each pomander, about 40 flowers = 28 sheets of paper (20×30)
10 pomanders =280 sheets