How to Make Fabric Poofs

I shared with you my Valentine's Day Mantel the other day, and mentioned that I would be giving a tutorial on how to make the fabric poofs that are in the buckets on my mantel.  I'm not really sure how to title these little guys, but poof is just gonna have to work right now.  If you think of something more creative, by all means, share!

Here's the step-by-step on how to make these:

Supplies:
-fabric

-scissors {or rotary circle cutter}

-circle shape to use as a stencil

-pins

-stryrofoam ball

1. Take your fabric and either trace out circles using a stencil of your choice.  OR, using a rotary circle cutter. For a short time while living in CA, I made and sold hairbows to a children's boutique.  In order to help with my little business, my husband found and purchased this tool for me and it saved me a TON of time!  Now, I'm glad to have it for projects like this when I need to cut out multiple circles.  This is what it looks like:

It's very similar to a compass, like used in math class, but this one has a blade on it.  You simply measure out the diameter of your circle, place the point on the fabric, and turn it around to cut out a perfect circle.

2. Once your circles are cut out, fold it in half, and then in half again, so that it looks like this:

3. At the bottom point of the circle {where all the folds meet} place a small straight pin and then insert it into the stryrofoam ball.

4. Continue inserting the fabric circles in this manner until you have enough of the ball covered for your liking.  For my purposes, I only needed half of it covered, because the bottom portion would be resting in a bucket, but you could continue all the way around the ball to make a complete sphere.

 At some point I had purchased this little bucket from the dollar bin at Target, and it was the perfect spot to rest my little poof of fabric.

This method is great for all kinds of crafts!  The original tutorial I saw using this method was for a heart wreath:

Felt Heart Tutorial