My kids earn tickets for completing chores around the house, and then they exchange their tickets for prizes – usually books, but sometimes other things. Nine-year-old Emma saved up her tickets to earn Klutz’s Mini Pom-Pom Pets book and kit*. She used the instructions in the book to make each of the animals featured above. You can see how her technique improved with practice! The mouse is my personal favorite!
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Pom-Pom Pets Craft for Kids
The book comes with instructions to make several different pets, as well as card stock cut-outs, bead eyes, glue, and yarn. We mostly followed the instructions in the book, but we were having trouble getting the pom-poms to look the way we wanted until I switched from using the yarn that came in the kit (or yarn we had in the house) to using monofilament line* (more commonly known as fishing line) to tie off the pom poms. The monofilament line is thinner, so it creates less of a defined edge in the pom-pom, but it is quite strong and so it easily holds the pom-pom in place.
Once we resolved our pom-pom making issue, Emma really got into making pom-poms! She has made several animals from the book, but she is also moving beyond the set instructions of the book to make creatures of her own design. She and five-year-old Lily came up with this cute chick animal on their own. The book includes some multi-pom-pom animals, but we haven’t tried those yet.
I was worried about the little animals staying put together, but so far they have survived gentle play from all four kids without any problems. Emma used several of them to create a stop motion video:
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
These Pom Pom animals are adorable and I love how they are used in the animation project!
We have not made pom pom pets, but we got their pipe cleaner book and the kids LOVED that one.
These are too cute!
Those are seriously adorable! They remind me very much of something similar I did as a kid, though it was a little bigger about the size of your palm, and made out of yarn. I had a ton of good memories making those.
What a great little movie :) Good job, Emma! We have used a number of the Klutz books, and loved them – though I can’t remember if we’ve done that one. It seems to me like the pom-pom animal book we had, came with already made pom-poms. Emma’s little animals are darling.
I love the little chick she created! Very cute pets, and it looks like they enjoyed their adventure. :)