Pom Pom Pumpkins

Welcome to Day 12 of 31 Days of Halloween Crafts! Today we’re making pom poms that look like jack-o-lanterns.

Materials:

- yarn

- cardboard

- scissors

First, you’ll need to make a tool that looks like this to make your pom pom on. I used hot glue to sandwich together three layers of cardboard so it’s nice and sturdy. Make sure the grain of the cardboard goes in the same direction you wrap your yarn so it doesn’t bend.

We’re going to make our pumpkin face from the center out.

First, wrap the black yarn 6 times for the nose, cut the end, and tuck it if you need to.

Next, wrap the black yarn twice to the left of the nose, leaving a gap in the middle, and without cutting the end. This is the middle of the mouth.

Wrap 10 times in orange to the left of the mouth to create a chin.

Wrap 3 times overlapping the mouth, then pick up the black yarn and wrap three times to overlap the orange.

Repeat this pattern 2 to 3 times, depending on how big you want the mouth to be.

Cut the black yarn and continue with orange yarn, wrapping 8 times to fill in the space between the mouth and nose.

Wrap 10 times to cover the nose and 15 times above it on the right.

Wrap 6 times in black for the eyes and 10 times in orange above the eyes.

Then wrap the whole thing 120 times in orange.

When you’re done, cut a length of orange yarn and wrap it around the whole middle twice. Double twist a single knot so when you pull it tight, it holds.

Carefully slide the whole thing off the cardboard.

Pull your yarn tight again, securing with a few more knots.

Cut your loops apart, layer by layer.

Trim your yarn down, using a circle of cardboard in the middle to keep everything uniform.

Don’t panic if the face looks messy, we can fix it by poking and prodding the yarn into place.

If you have extraneous pieces you don’t like, just pull them out.

Once you’ve arranged the face to your liking, your pumpkin pom pom is complete.