Have an extra three hours? Then this one’s for you! But before you even start, head over here to learn how to hand dye your cupcake liners.
Despite the excessive time required, I had a blast making these for the colorful baby shower I was planning. And they turned out so stunning, I might even consider doing it again.
It all started when I stumbled across the below in Martha Stewart Living while I was at the gym. Oh Martha, you make it look so quick!
And because I’m a chronic overachiever, I decided that I needed to add some color to each and every liner by hand dying them. I think it was worth it. Do you?
Do-it-Yourself Alternative Pomanders
Supplies:
- Styrofoam balls of varying sizes – I used an 8 inch ball, 5 inch ball, and two 4 inch balls. Just remember, they get bigger when you add all the cupcake liners to them. And, each ball took about 45 minutes to complete.
- Cupcake liners – I followed Martha’s advice and bought 300 mini cups. I couldn’t find enough white, regular size cupcake liners so I bought what I could, 150. I think their guidelines in the article above are actually pretty close. I ended up using a mixture of the big liners and the mini liners on a few of the balls. The result was a pomander with more depth than the others. It really just depends which look you prefer.
- Hot glue gun and plenty of glue sticks
- Monofilament thread
- Duct tape
- Ribbon for hanging (optional)
- Vase/Glass to stabilize the ball while you’re working on it.
Step one: Martha recommended threading the monofilament through the ball using a curved embroidery needle. But what average woman has a curved embroidery needle lying around?!?! Instead, just tie a small loop out of filament wire and attach it carefully to the styrofoam ball using hot glue. Once the hot glue has set, cover it with duct tape for extra hold.
Note: Be careful not to make your loop too big. If you plan on using ribbon to hang them, you don’t want the monofilament to stick out above your cupcake liners. Otherwise, you’ll get this:
Step Two: Hey look, you’re on the last step already! That didn’t take too long! Er, wait a minute. This step involves individually gluing 100+ cupcake liners to the thing. So you’re almost done.
Wrap a cupcake liner around the eraser end of a pencil. Put a dab of hot glue on the bottom of the liner, and place it on the ball. Then do it again. And again. And again.
As you go along you can reshape the liners by pushing them closer together when you add more. You can also easily fill in gaps. You don’t need to go into this with an exact plan. The pomanders look best when you go about it organically.
If you like a less full look, use your finger to fluff the liner out a bit after you stick it to the styrofoam ball. I had to do this on the large ball because I was afraid I would run out of liners. For the record, I ended up with about 30 left.
Hey, look – you’re halfway there!
Give yourself another 20 minutes And ta-da!
A couple of notes:
- These are not super fragile. When you get to the last area of the ball, it does get a little tough to handle, but don’t be scared to set it down – you won’t crush the cupcake liners and if you do they’re super easy to re-fluff. Of course, you probably want to give them a few minutes to let the glue set before you do so.
- These are also not super light. In fact, they are surprisingly heavy. I thought I’d be able to hang them with tape. No dice. I had to call on the Hubs to figure this one out. He opted for tiny screw eyes. Genius!
