pom pom cheat tutorial and pom pom bugs (bee, ladybird and caterpillar)

everyone knows how to make pom poms - you wrap wool around a ring for aaaaages and then cut around the edge, tie, and neaten up. i'm just not quite patient enough for that, also i work with small children who's attention spans might not be big enough for that just yet. so! i've made up a pom pom cheat, and it goes like so:

first up, wrap wool around your fingers:

then once there's a fair bit of wool on there, stop, and tie loosely in the middle :

next, slip the lot off your hand and pull your knot tight, and then double/triple knot it in place:

now you just treat it like you would a normal pom pom - cut around the edge and then even it out with scissors:

(before)

 (after)

of course, once you have your pom pom, then you have to decide what to do with it. i opted for bugs (planning stuff for my next group of home-school kids), which turned out to be super easy! just glue googly eyes to something furry and it looks like a cute animal thing : ) add more pom poms, felt etc to be more specific in terms of animal...