DIY yarn pom pom Christmas tree ornaments

Yeah, I decorated for Christmas, okay? I'm the worst. But we weren't hosting Thanksgiving this year and the Italians have already begun (they obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving so there is no buffer to the Christmas madness) and I was just like, "When in Rome." Just about literally.

This is our second Christmas as a married couple and our first tree together! I was pining (yeah puns!) over getting a real tree this year and I didn't think it would happen until I spotted some incredibly affordable — and apartment-sized! — ones at IKEA with a really cool program. I'm not sure if they do this in the states, but at our local IKEA, they had these real trees for 15€ that you pot instead of chop, and then when Christmas is over, you bring the tree back and they replant it and give you a gift card. It's kind of like being a holiday foster family! So I picked this little guy out — it's under 4 feet — took him home and named him Kringle, much to my husband's chagrin.

After Tyler did all the literal dirty work (potting this baby), I got to do the fun part — decorating while watching/reciting "Home Alone." I also spotted these super fun yarn pom ornaments at IKEA (as well as the other ornaments I did buy, like these fun paper gems), but I was like, no way am I paying for something that I can make for about 1/10 of the cost and customize, especially when I already have the stuff and can pump them out in one sitting of "Love Actually." So, here we are.

YOU'LL NEED:

• yarn of your choice
• scissors
• twine

DO THIS:

1. Take your yarn and wrap it around your fingers where they meet your hand. The more fingers you wrap it around and the more times you wrap it, the bigger the pom will be (I did four fingers, 40 times).
2. Cut a piece of yarn about 6 inches long. Loosen the yarn already around your fingertips a bit and slide it just slightly toward the tips if your fingers. Push the piece of yarn between your middle and ring finger where your fingers meet your hand and have the other end of the piece of yarn meet it on the other side between the same fingers. Tie the piece of yarn together very tightly and slide it off your fingertips. Tie the piece of yarn tightly into a double knot.
3. Slide your open scissors into the newly-made crease where the yarn was wrapped and cut at the fold. Do this all the way around the pom. Now you have a shaggy pom!
4. Trim all the way around the pom to your liking.
5. Take your twine and cut off about a 6-inch piece (this can be trimmed later). You'll want to feed this through the middle of the pom — if you're not sure where the middle is, you can look through the yarn bits to see your yarn piece where you cinched it. To feed it through, you can wrap your twine around a needle, or I wrapped mine around one blade of my scissors since my twine was too thick for a needle.
6. Once it's fed through, bring the other end of the twine to meet it and tie a double knot. Hang it on the tree and you're done!

Photos & text copyright Katie Currid, design © Theresa Berens, 2015. All rights reserved.