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Well, it’s no secret, we’re all about Ombre right now. Maybe it’s this beautiful spring weather, but there’s something just so whimsical and girly about it–we’re just giddy! So I started thinking after our last post, “Why couldn’t I try ombre on a tissue poof?!” I’ve seen ombre-esque tissue poms done with multiple colors of tissue paper but thought I’d take it a step further (and honestly just had a bunch of white tissue paper lying around).

Now one thing you may not know about me (Katherine) is that I started my adult life as a middle school science teacher–well, if you disregard standing in front of supermarkets dressed as a blood drop recruiting donors for blood drives! One of my students’ favorite labs explored chromatography, so I thought, “Why can’t the same thing be applied to tissue poofs and party decor?!?” So I came up with this little tutorial on making your own chromatography-inspired ombre-inspired tissue pom.

Without further adieu, the tutorial:

1. Using Martha Stewart’s Tissue Pom-Pom tutorial I started my pom. Now, if you don’t feel like making your own pom from scratch, there are plenty of kits out there that take the majority of the steps out of Pom making, but we would only suggest using white poms to do so. I chose to round off the ends of the paper to give it a scalloped, floral look.

2. Using a large jar (or really anything you want that can fit the paper) and some food coloring (I used pink gel food coloring because it’s more concentrated and what I had on hand) and diluted it. No strict math here–maybe 10 drops of food coloring and a couple of cups of water. The key here is not to fully submerge your tissue, just the ends. Let it sit for about 5 minutes or so…long enough to get the water and dye moving up the tissue paper a bit.

3. To speed up the process of drying, I went outside in the sun to hang up the unfolded tissue pom. I knew that the bamboo growing over the fence from my neighbor’s yard would come in use someday because until now all it has done is get my husband all grouchy and riled up! Now, I’m generally a pretty patient person, but not so much with crafting. I took it inside and dried it with my hairdryer’s diffuser attachment to speed up the process. Either works (outdoors just makes for better pictures), but the moral of the story is it needs to be COMPLETELY dry before you proceed to the next step. And I mean COMPLETELY. Not even a little bit damp but dry through and through, otherwise the paper will just shred in step 4.

4. Once the tissue paper is dry (repeat after me: “COMPLETELY dry”), you can open it up. Isn’t this pretty!!!!???? An added bonus, the water made the tissue paper all feathery and rose petal like. BEEE-eautiful! If you want more “how to’s” on the pom unfolding, refer back to Martha!

5. Voila! Your ombre-esque (or as my daughter says, “pretty flower!”) Tissue pom!!