Pom Pom Balls and Fancy Paper Fan Party Decor

I haven't mentioned it within the past few weeks but I had another baby shower this past weekend! It was on Saturday. I am so relieved that I have made it this far. I was paranoid that I would have the baby early and not make it to my shower. My mom didn't really want me involved too much in this shower. She said she wanted to try and keep most of it a surprise. That's why my Grandma flew in from Florida, to help organize the party. My mom did ask me if I could do some of the party decorations which I gladly took on this task. I'm the kind of person that if you sit me in front of a T.V. and expect me to watch T.V. I can't. I need to be constantly doing something. So in the late evenings, before bed, while I watched T.V. I have been working on party decorations - specifically Pom Pom Balls and Fancy Paper Fans. These are both really easy to make, it's just time consuming. So every evening for about two weeks I made a couple fans and a couple Pom Pom balls.

The Pom Pom balls are made out of tissue paper. You can get a value pack of tissue paper at Christmas Tree Shop, the dollar store, or ocean state job lot for only $1.00. For each Pom Pom ball you need 8 or 9 sheets of one color. Neatly stack all 8 sheets of tissue paper.

Once you have all 8 sheets neatly stacked you have to fold the tissue paper like an accordion. Each fold should be about 1 inch wide.

Once you have the entire sheet folded you will need to use wire or a pipe cleaner and tie it around the center of the of the folded tissue paper.

Get your scissors and round off or create triangles in the ends.

Then fan out the pom pom and very gently peel apart each sheet of tissue paper.

Once you have finished you will have a complete tissue ball.

Attach a piece of fishing wire to the the pipe cleaner so that you can hang the pom pom ball. The cool thing is that no one will see the fishing wire because it is clear. Because I decided to start making the Pom Pom balls In advance I didn't open them up because I didn't want them to get ruined or dusty. These are all the Pom Pom balls I made.

I think I went a little crazy.

The fancy paper fans are even easier than the Pom Pom balls. I first got this idea when I spent the evening with my Mom in Northampton. We went to get a massage and then out to dinner. When we were walking to the restaraunt we did some window shopping. One window was eye catching because it was decorated with the paper fans. That's when I said, "Mom, wouldn't these be awesome for the shower?" All you need is either square scrap booking paper or fancy wrapping paper cut into square pieces I got a whole pack of scrapbooking paper from Walmart for $5.

You will need two sheets of the same kind of paper.

Fold the paper like an accordion. Once your finished fold the accordian paper in half the long way and staple or tape the center folds together.

 Fan it out.

You will notice that this creates only half of the paper fan. You have to repeat the process a second time with the same patterned paper. Then staple or tape the two halves of the circular fan together.

 Here are what my fans looked like. I created all different sizes for variation.

These would even make great decorations for your house!  I hope this post is helpful for cost effective decorating at your parties