 Hi you guys, Lindsay here. Welcome back to my channel, Inside the Hymn. So the holiday season is here and I know a lot of us are going to be trying to rack our brains to come up with some gifts that we can make for our friends and family. So I am here today and every Saturday in November bringing you new and unique gift ideas that you can make for the loved ones in your life. The gifts that I am going to be showing you how to make are going to be quick like under a couple of hours and super affordable because we are making them ourselves. We just buy a couple of supplies. You can make multiple versions and get the cost per gift down even lower. So keep all that in mind. Today I am wearing a huge hint as to what we're going to be talking about and that is pom poms. So I recently got the pom pom makers from Clover and these little guys have brought me so much joy and happiness. I'm basically addicted. The pom pom maker itself comes, it's like one package, comes with four different sizes. I got a bunch of different materials because I wasn't quite sure what was going to be best. So the very first thing that I tried was this 100% cotton yarn. I guess, I guess it's called yarn. And I also got it in this orange, pink, blue kind of situation because I really liked how those colors looked and I wanted to know what an ombre yarn would look like as it was wrapped around into the pom pom. And these were the results. So here's the largest pom pom in the blue and orange kind of ombre and then here's the one of the littler ones in the navy. And you can kind of already tell what, like why this didn't work. The cotton yarn isn't fluffy enough and so it doesn't really fill out. Like this one is like droopy and sad. You know what I mean? It's like it wants to be more fluffy like this and it's really just, it doesn't stay and it doesn't look that great. So if they had this like ombre color, not in 100% cotton, something with some more acrylic, I think it would be a lot better. But I immediately ruled this out for any of my projects. I didn't use that at all. This one here is three different colors of acrylic yarn wrapped together all the way around the pom pom maker all at one time creating kind of your own ombre effect. I also wanted to try other materials. So you can tell the one I just showed you is nice and fluffy. You can see here's another version that's just two colors. This is what a two color version looks like. But it's super full, super fluffy. I also really enjoyed this one, which was kind of like a Chanel kind of you can tell that it's a little bit fuzzy and that turned out really well. And I also tried it with fur. So apparently they have these fur yarns. I had never seen these before. It kind of got me inspired for some garments that I might have coming up. But either way here is the fur yarn that turned out really cute. It looks like this. It's like this isn't been trimmed. It's a funny little shake. But anyways, there's the fur one. That one's really fun. And then I also tried a sparkly, I don't know, it's like it's like the fur but it's more like an eyelash trim. And when I did that mixed with white acrylic yarn, this is what that looks like. The pink and the white together, I think, turned out really, really cute. But you can see how fluffy that is. So lots of different materials that I experimented with. The sort of Cliff's Notes version is 100% cotton doesn't work. The more acrylic and polyester and more fluffy, the yarn is the better it's going to work for you. And to try and mix materials like fur, like eyelash trim, whatever it is that speaks to you. So now let me show you just how easy it is to use the pom-pom maker. And then I'll show you all the projects that I made. And there are quite a few because like I said, I'm basically addicted to this thing. So you open up your pom-pom maker like so. You take your yarn and you simply start wrapping it around one half of the pom-pom maker. And you're trying to get the entire white part of the pom-pom maker completely covered. And I tried to do this in one single layer and it just wasn't as poofy and it wasn't as full. So I like to do like starting a little bit further back and then filling in and then filling in over top of that. So you're getting roughly like doubled up on your yarn as it's going around. All right. Now you close that end up. So you've got half of it. You've still got the string. Start the other side. Same thing. I also found while doing this, there really isn't a way to mess this up. The wrapping part anyways, even if you did, you know, you didn't get it as full. It doesn't look bad. It just doesn't look as full. If you did it too full, it doesn't look bad. It just looks super, super full and fluffy. All right. So this is what you've got now. Now you need to take some scissors and I actually got special scissors just for this project. They also came from Clover and they are the Patchwork Scissors. And what's beautiful about these Patchwork Scissors are that they are a little bit sterrated. So when you cut through things, it's not going to slip out of the blade. It's going to cut all the way to the tip and make for super, super precise work, which is why I chose them for this particular project. So you have your little wrap like this and you're going to take your scissors, put it into the little groove that's there. There's like a little funnel and you cut and then you go up to the next little area and you cut and you just want to do that all the way around, going through the little, the hinge and keep cutting until you get all the way around. And so now you have something that looks like this. Now, even though I did not use the cotton yarn to make the actual pom-poms, I did find that it worked really well for the next step. So you just want to cut a length. I like to err on the side of caution. You can always cut it shorter later, but you're going to lay this into the little tunnel and you're going to get your little sides as even as possible, grab them and pull. And that has just pulled the string into the center of the pom-pom maker. And now you take the ends of your string and you tie them super tight. And this is why the cotton yarn works really well because it's very, very strong and durable. So once you've got that all tied up, now you want to, this is where the magic happens, you lift your little rainbows, I guess, and then release them from the pom-pom maker. And just like that, little fluffy action, a little trim action. You just want to get the ones that are like going rogue and not wanting to look super pretty. And there you have a beautiful little pom-pom. I went to town and made a ton of these and then turned them into some really, really great projects. Here are all the ideas that I executed. And believe me, there are even more that I did not get done yet, but that you will see very soon. Take it away. First up is a cute pair of sneaks. To add the pom-poms to the shoes, I simply took some velcro dots and applied the loop side to the shoe and the hook side to a flattened portion of the pom-pom. This also means that the pom-poms are interchangeable. So when you're thinking of specific people to make these four, think of fun ways that you can celebrate with them. Maybe their favorite sports teams colors, holiday colors, and fun colors that coordinate with their favorite clothes. Sticking with footwear, next up are these slippers. Since the slippers are made from fabric, I was able to thread the cotton tails of the pom-pom through a needle with a large eye and sew through the upper part of the slipper. After both sides of the tails are through the shoe, simply tie them in a knot. I know a lot of you will be making family pajamas for the holidays. How cute will this little addition to the outfits be? The next one is probably the easiest and fastest of them all, and that's this knit headband. The knit headband I purchased was already knotted in the middle, so I simply tied the tails of the pom-pom around the knot of the headband, and that's it. I made this one for some upcoming Carolina Panthers games and combined two colors for the largest pom-pom and just the blue for the smaller one. For this pom-pom hair tie, I made the pom-pom a little bit differently. Before tying the cotton string around the pom-pom maker, I slipped the thread through a hair tie. Then when you pull the cotton string through the center tunnel of the pom-pom maker, it sandwiches the hair tie in the center of the pom-pom. This made it more durable and conceals the hair tie better. I am picturing this for all of the little girls in your life, whether it be their cheer squad colors, their school colors, whatever it is, I can see a bunch of little girls running around with these pom-pom hair ties. So for the hat, I used the exact same technique as I did with the slippers. Thread the cotton tails through a large eye needle, so both ends of the string through the top of the hat. There's a pretty substantial seam in that inner section on the top, so the tails tie around it and are very stable. These kind of pom-pom hats are everywhere this season. I've seen a bunch even with the fur pom-poms, which would also be super, super cute. Grab your hot glue gun for this next one. To make the headband, I applied a dab of hot glue to the flattened center of the pom-pom and pressed it firmly into the headband for a few seconds to set. Easy peasy. You can make these headbands with various size pom-poms like I did here, kind of grading from largest in the center, tapering down to smaller. You could do them all the same size, but in a bunch of different colors that would be adorable as well. The possibilities are really endless with this one. Remember the sew-on method for the slippers and the hat? I used the exact same technique to sew the pom-poms onto this sweatshirt. To make your sweatshirt a little bit more trendy, think of really fun, popular colors. So I opted for orange and pink. Orange and blue is also a really fun combination. I can imagine burgundy and pink. You could obviously do school colors here. You could do team colors here. You could go red and green. You could really have a lot, a lot of fun. Another option is to do all the pom-poms in tons of different colors on a neutral sweatshirt like gray, black, white, or cream. I'm pretty sure you're getting the hang of this now, but I used the sew-on method again to adorn this woven bag with pom-poms. My bag was fully lined, so the tails tied nicely and securely. But if your bag isn't lined or the lining is loosely woven, slip the threads through some clear buttons on the inside to give it some stability. Sort of like you would use a washer in your wood projects. Also be sure to add the pom-poms to the side of the bag that doesn't have the inner pockets. It will ensure that you can still use the pocket, and it will be easier to tie off since you're not going through multiple layers of lining. So as you can see, I had a lot of fun with this, and I really feel like any one of those ideas that I just shared would be great for someone in your life. Whether it be a young person, like a child, would do really well with maybe the hair type pom-pom. A teenager might really love the headband. Someone in their 20s or 30s might like the pom-pom sweater or the shoes. I just feel like there is something for everyone in one of those ideas that I just shared. So maybe it made you think of someone in your life that would really love one of these pom-pom projects. I hope that you will go grab a pom-pom maker for yourself and get to work making them. It is super fun. I was watching all of the Hallmark holiday movies and making pom-poms and just living my best life, and I want that experience for everyone. I will be sharing with you guys a lot more ideas that I have to use for the pom-pom makers. So stay tuned for that. This will not be a one and done purchase for you. You are going to be using the pom-pom maker year round. Trust me. Okay, and like I said, I'm doing these DIY gift idea projects every single Saturday, this entire month. So come back next Saturday. I have a really fun idea that I was able to do for less than $10, which is really, really great. And it's very in style, very trendy, something that I think a lot of people will really like. So come back here for that, but I will see you in the meantime as well for a lot of other really great videos. See you all soon. Bye.