DIY semi-fail...

If you recall I wanted to try my hand at a DIY project for our aisle decor. I found a lot of options that I wrote about here, and I decided to give these pomander balls a try.

Image via theidearoom.com

(You can find their directions by following the link above)

Let me start by saying that mine does not look like theirs... I followed the directions but sometimes you have to experiment and see that works for you. I find it's hard to explain in writing how you made something. Maybe I misinterpreted the instructions a little... Well I'm going to try my best to explain how I made my first pomander ball.  

First I gathered my supplies:

-Crepe paper in the color of your choice. I ended up needing two rolls

-I used  3" round Styrofoam ball (I think it may have worked better with a 2" ball though)

-Ribbon

-A glue gun

-Something to measure how long to cut the crepe paper. I used a tape measure.

So as you can already see, if I decide to do this again I'm going to make some changes.

First step is measure a piece of crepe paper about 2ft. Cut at 2ft, or rip like I did...

Next you crinkle it up the paper and flatten it back out. It makes the paper softer and easier to work with.

You then fold about 1/3 of the paper over.

Now you are ready to start making your rose. Roll the paper a couple times to get it started.

Now this is the hard part to explain, and it takes some experimenting. You continue to roll up the paper, but start to twist the bottom, sort of. I ended up just keeping the bottom between two fingers while rolling the paper. I found that when I twisted the bottom while rolling the paper into a ball, the flowers became too small.

I tried my best to make the flowers a big and as "flower like," as possible. What I did to make this happen was I kind of placed the paper where I wanted it to be while rolling them. I put my thumb under the folded part of the paper, which helped create the petal look while rolling the paper. Ugh. Its hard to explain, which is why you have to experiment and see what works for you!

As you can see below, my earlier flowers are just way to small.

There are some good ones in there as I got better at making them.

When you get about 10 flowers made, you can start hot gluing them onto your Styrofoam ball.

I think the Styrofoam ball I used was too big. I had to make sooo many flowers to fill the whole thing. And since I started out making these tiny skinny flowers it took forever to finish.

I also hot glued a ribbon on before finishing the ball, that way I could hang it on a chair.

So my first attempt was kind of a fail because I don't think it looks very pretty. The flower sizes are uneven and the smaller flowers don't really look like flowers. But I did learn how to make it better if I want to try again. I also bought some white crepe paper, so I might get a 2" ball and attempt a version 2.0 from the lessons learned in my first try.

On our shelf where it now lives. Far away from the curious kitties.

I'm proud of myself for trying my hand at my first DIY project! It may not have worked out the way I wanted but hey, there is room for improvement and you've got to start somewhere, right?

Have you done any DIY projects for your wedding that resulted in a semi-fail?

*All photos personal unless otherwise noted