How to Make Cheerleading Pom Poms

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Lucy Spain here to show you how to make cheerleading pom poms. There are two different kinds of poms that you can use. The first one is going to be a single pom with one handle. This is a common pom pom. However, now most squads are going to be going to this type of pom pom which will actually just look like one ruffle, however, the handle is actually hidden in the middle. These pom poms hold like this and actually hide your entire hand. So that's the kind we're going to concentrate on today. You're going to want to go to any store and buy about ten trash bags in your school's colors. Black and white are the most easy to find, so if you find one of your school colors, go ahead and mix it up with some black or white. Take about ten of your trash bags and layer them on top of one another. You're going to want to use a flat surface where you can't cut anything up, so I wouldn't recommend using carpet or hard wood. I would go ahead and use a nice cutting surface. You're going to want to put your bags together and lay them down on a flat surface. After that you're going to have to cut off some of the uneven edges, such as the lacing up here. We're going to want to go ahead and cut all that off. Just get rid of any corners or anything uneven that you're not going to be able to use. So once you get it cut nice across the top, we're going to fold these bags in half once again. After we do that, you're going to want to cut off the folded edge, and after that make sure your bags are all still aligned. Keep in mind you should have about ten. And then you're simply going to go from each side and make slits towards the center. If you want your pom poms to be fuller, go with thinner strips. If you want them to be less full, go with thicker. You want to cut them in towards the center leaving about three inches on each side. So go ahead and keep cutting your strips on both sides. After you get your strips cut, you're going to want to gather that central part that we left and wrap it with some electrical tape or duct tape or any kind of sturdy tape that you can find around the house. You're going to tie that center part up. Then after that, you're going to take the strips that we made earlier and do what's called fluffing the pom pom. You just want to crinkle them up, keep crinkling them until you've got nice strips that look like a completed project right here. And that's how you make a cheerleading pom pom."