Apparently I wasn't ready with making Pom Poms yet. In an older blog post I created Pom Poms from Tissue paper, but these have been made from wool. While visiting my mom last Mother's Day we were in the mood to 'be creative'. Being a Sunday, the stores were closed so we had to use whatever my mother had available...hence the wool.

I searched online what you can do with wool besides an form of knitting and came across several sites showing how to make small Pom Poms from wool while only using wool, a fork and scissors. Great! Easy, little mess and doesn't take hours. You only have to twist a string of wool about a fork a lot, tie it together with another string of wool, take it of the fork, cut the ends and trim the outside into a small sphere (see the pictures somewhat lower in the blog)

Having made a few, we didn't really know what to do with them, the cat wasn't interested... I don't really remember how, but suddenly I thought that they actually look a lot like a flower, they only needed a stem. Using some of the floral wire I had lying around I pushed one Pom Pom onto the end of about 20 cm of floral wire, and voila, a cute flower

So I made a bunch more, experimenting with the number of loops of wool around the fork. 

• In the end between 50-75 loops worked best for the width of the fork I used. 
• I experimented a bit with types of wool and found that you really need wool that can be stretched, otherwise you can't really tie a string around it tight enough for it to become a nice sphere.
• Finally, I found that not pulling on the string too much while wrapping it around the fork gave the best results

I made a really big one with 150 loops using something else than a fork, although I do not know the name for it, but in essence, it was 2-3 times wider than my fork. But these Pom Poms became so heavy, I had to twist two floral wires together to keep the wire from sagging. See the big one below

I am actually not satisfied with the grey vase in the photos. I think either a vase with a much smalle neck looks better, or a very high en medium wide cylindrical clear glass vase where I could place them completely into. Both of those options I don't have a spare of right now, though

I have a cat that just loves to eat everything green and flowery, so the only plant I have in my apartment is tough and prickly. Nonetheless I do love flowers and did still want to have flowers in my room without having to buy those obviously fake ones

I was in an origami mood again and thought that paper flowers would probably be a good substitute for actual flowers. They are not trying to be real flowers and the unique designs from origami make for an interesting bouquet. Also, these do not need any tending to of course ;)

After a few hours of searching for nice flower designs I started making several of the flowers. Not all the designs turned out the way I hoped, but 5 designs did have nice results. 

Using a few strands of ribbon I had left, I made small loops and glued each flower to a loop. I bought some dead twigs at a Garden Center, put them in a vase, hung the origami flowers from the branches and voila, a nice vase full of flowers!

Here are the folding instructions for the 5 flowers I made for my bouquet

Kirigami Flower
The instructions for the Kirigami Flower (it's called kirigami when you have to cut certain parts) can be found here

Cherry Blossoms
The cherry blossoms are made from 5 small 5 x 5 cm square units glued together and are very easy to make. The instructions can be found here

Kusudama Flower
The Kusudama flower is also made from 5 small units glue together. The instructions can be found here

Carambola Flower

This flower is really made from one sheet of paper, but is by far the most difficult to make of the designs here. The results is worth it though. View the video on how to fold one yourself here

8-petal origami flower
The final design consists of two units glued together. The instruction can be found here