Martha was nice enough to send me some samples of the Tissue Paper Pom-Pom Kit from Martha Stewart Crafts ($19.99 at Michaels).  This is my first experience with one of Martha’s pre-made crafts. The only craft kits I’ve ever done in my life are the ones you get as a kid. And I managed to butcher those pretty well. I remember for my birthday in third grade I got a kit that supposedly showed you how to make flowers out of tissue paper. I went through the entire kit and did not get a single one to work for me!

I am not a fan of paper decorations in general.  They are mostly simply awful, but these looked like they might be pretty. I opened up the package. You get 3 large pom-poms and 4 small ones.

The instructions were pretty straight forward. You get a bunch of sheets of tissue paper that have been scalloped on the edges and stacked. You fold them like an accordion along premade fold lines. Even I could do this!

I got it folded sort of evenly. Then you take a wire that is included and fold it around the center of the tissue paper (the directions were unclear about this – they said to position it about 6 inches from the edge. I think it would be clearer to say to do it in the center.)

I got my wire wrapped and then started to loosen the tissue paper layers. I admit I ripped a few pieces a little bit. I got them all poofed up and it really did make a pom-pom.

A person who is more skilled at crafting could probably get it to fluff out more evenly than I did, but I have to say it didn’t look half bad. If you are craft-impaired and need to make paper pom-poms (I’m not sure WHO really NEEDS to make paper pom-poms, but whatever).

I still don’t feel compelled to make and hang paper decorations, but if I did,

these are quite nice. They look like flowers. Could you make this yourself without the kit? Definitely. All you would need to do is scallop the edges of a stack of tissue paper. You would fold it in the same way, and would just make sure that you that you did so evenly. Is $10 a lot for 7 paper pom-poms? Maybe, especially since if you have any craft skills at all, I think you could easily make this for much, much less.

It was fun to make a craft that was easy and turned out just like it should, so for that I will say it is a good thing.