DIY: Q-Tip Flower Poms

I have been meaning to share this for some time now, but I have literally not even had a free minute to blog! It's sad, but I'll explain more about the craziness happening in an upcoming post. 

In my recent bridal and baby shower planning, I found some fabulous inspiration on Pinterest and stumbled upon a super easy-to-understand DIY for Anthropologie-Inspired Blooms at Homemade Ginger. At first I couldn't tell what they were made of until I looked closer at the DIY. Q-Tips! 

I always love incorporating new elements into parties and I knew these would be perfect - My sister Vanessa and I took on the challenge and we had a fun time with it! Here is our experience, based on inspiration from the DIY -- 

We used:

Lots of Q-Tips, cut in half (we used almost 2 boxes for 9 flowers)

Styrofoam Balls

Scissors (strong enough to cut Q-tips)

Hot glue

Food coloring + water

Thick, wired stems from silk flowers (unless you plan to hang these)

We began by cutting all of our Q-Tips in half. Before we figured out a system, we kept getting a kick out of how they kept shooting off in different directions as we were cutting them.. I think one even shot into my drinking glass! 

We debated whether or not to use hot glue and decided to, since I wanted to reuse these for other parties, etc (I'm sure the project would have gone much quicker if we had chosen not to use the glue). Depending on the size of the styrofoam ball, we spaced them accordingly. It's totally up to you, how close or deep you want the Q-Tips -- We definitely found it a little more challenging to fit them when we placed them closer/deeper, since there was not much room for the ends to go. Another thing to keep in mind.. The more Q-Tips you use and the larger the styro ball, the heavier it is. If it's too heavy, the stem will have a harder time holding it upright.

I was absolutely too excited to dye these beauties to think logically - I filled a bowl with yellow food coloring and failed to add water. AH! I really wanted yellow, but without the water to dilute it (at all!), the dye was so severely strong, that it turned out orange. We originally planned to make 6 yellow flowers and I dyed 3 of hard-worked poms orange. I decided to do an additional 3 and save the orange ones for something else. Boo. I'll never make that mistake again -- Add water to dye.

For the additional poms, I wanted to pack the Q-Tips in. I loved the direction they were going. They turned out a bit heavy for the stems, but with the right vase, they looked pretty amazing! We ended up using these little beauties for my sister's Sweet, Yellow Bridal Shower and they were a big hit! My mom kept asking the ladies, "What do you think those are made of?? Huh??" and it was fun to see everyone's expression when they found out it was all Q-Tips. Definitely worth the time and hassle!

Thanks again, Homemade Ginger, for sharing a great tutorial!

xo