My daughter loves to challenge me. Last week she had me making her a rainbow shelf and this week it’s a pompom cactus. I’d been looking online for some fun cactus rocks to paint up for her room when she promptly told me that she didn’t want a rock cactus but a pompom cactus.
So this is what I was able to come up with. I thought it was an inspired idea on her part, I never would have thought of giving a pompom cactus a go.
They really are super simple to make, and will brighten up any child’s rooms. My 3 year old helped make all the small pompoms by simply wrapping the wool around her fingers. I had to tie them off, but she loved that she was part of the process.
This is a great activity for older kids. They can go online and find images of cactus then recreate them, and paint up the funky little pots to go with them too.
How to make a pompom cactus
Materials you will need
Green wool
Orange wool
Glue gun
Scissors
Small terracotta pot and base
Acrylic paint (I used Resene Scrumptious and Resene Black Haze test pots)
Washi tape
What to do
You’ll need to make 2 medium-sized green pompoms, 3 small green pompoms and one small orange pompom. You can find instructions for how to make pompoms here. Once you’ve made them give them a little trim.
Once you’ve made and trimmed the pompoms put them aside and paint up your pots. To do this paint the whole pot and the base in a white colour. Give them at least 3 coats, as the terracotta pots will suck up a lot of moisture from the paint. I used Black Haze from Resene.
Next, tape the bottom 3rd of the pot off, and paint the top with your chosen colour. We chose Scrumptious from Resene. Again, you’ll want to give it a couple of coats for a really rich colour.
Once the pot is dry, you glue your cactus together.
Start by pushing the first medium-sized pompom into the pot. Then glue the second medium-sized pompom on top of the first. Now glue one of the smallest green ones on top. Use the other two green pompoms to create a branch coming out one side. Finally, attach the small orange pompom at the top of your cactus and trim to shape.
