Pom Pom Bee

Materials:

Black and yellow yarn

Poster board

Pipe cleaners

Yellow felt

Wiggly eyes

Instructions:

1.         To make the bees body cut two 3-inch circles out of poster board or other cardboard. Cut 2-inch circles out of the centers of these two circles to form a donut shape.

2.         Hold the two circles together and wrap yellow yarn around the donut shape through the hole in the center starting at one point and filling in with yarn until the cardboard is covered.  Keep wrapping the yellow yarn until you come back to the same point you started.  To make things go quicker, cut a long length of the yarn and roll it up into a small ball. Then start wrapping, pushing the ball through the hole instead of pulling the whole length of yard through the whole each time. Don’t worry about end pieces that stick out, you can cut them off later. To keep the yarn in place when you start a new color just wrap the new piece around the end of the old piece. Don’t tie knots. Instead of using really long pieces of yarn, you can also use this method with shorter pieces.

3.         When you have finished the yellow circle, use black yarn doing the exact same thing you did with the yellow.  Keep alternating yellow and black yarn until you can’t fit any more yarn through the hole.

To finish the ball, cut the yarn loops all the way around the edge of the circle using sharp scissors.  When you have cut all the loops you will see the edge of the cardboard circles.  Use another piece of yarn to tie the pompom. Separate the two circles just enough to get the piece of yarn in between the two circles.  Place the yarn all the way around the inside of the circle and pull tight and tie a knot. Pull off the cardboard circles or cut them away. Trim any pieces of yarn that are sticking out too far.  Trim the ball to be a little pointy at one end. This is the bee’s tail where his stinger is located.

4.         Make the bees head in the same manner using yellow yarn except use a 2-inch donut instead of a 3-inch donut. I added a little bit of black, but it isn’t necessary.

5.         When the head is finished hot melt glue it onto the body.  Glue on eyes and pipe cleaner antennae.  Glue on a nose and mouth if desired. 

6.         See how many other creatures you can make using pompoms in this manner.