Learning Room, Phase 2: Tulle Pom Poms

Husband and I are making our main floor 'den' into a Learning Room. This space is intended to encourage learning by emphasizing reading, writing, science, art, etc. Examples of such spaces can be found here. 

I am a fan of using color in accents. I love a neutral canvas with pops of color. In that spirit, I added color to the learning room by making several tulle pom poms as a ceiling accent. This both adds color to the room, and lowers the scale of the ceiling, making the room feel more intimate. 

To make tulle pom poms, here are a couple of tutorials:

Little Things Beautiful

Chintzy Couture

A couple of tips to expand on the tutorials: 

Be SURE your ribbon or wire is between the two pieces of cardboard!! 

See that big purple ball? It is about 24" in diameter and took a loooong time to wrap as it was several spools of tulle. The ribbon (which is what I used to secure the center) apparently snuck out of the cardboard sandwich, so when I pulled apart the two cardboard templates, the perfectly cut tulle just fell onto the floor in a big mess. After silently screaming and gnashing my teeth, I spent the next 10-15 minutes salvaging the pieces. The top of it looks a little wonky, but luckily you don't see that part. {Wink.}

If you are doing a large tulle pom pom (like these), I recommend making a slit in the cardboard, rather than the full donut, similar to this yarn pom pom template. The larger the ball, the more tulle it will require for your desired fullness... essentially, your center 'donut hole' will get smaller and smaller as you wrap with more tulle, making it harder to feed through the center. The slit will allow you to feed it through much easier.

And finally, a room view with the table, chair, and pom poms:

And because I know some of you are wondering why that chalkboard is mounted so high (bestie, I'm looking at you!), the answer is two-fold...

1) The chalkboard is not for Little Tomato's use. I didn't want chalk tracked through the house, so I have an alternative to a chalkboard for her (Phase 3 of the Learning Room).

2) Imagine a piece of furniture sitting under it. (Phase 4, the largest undertaking...)

And in case you were wondering what it says right now, it is my favorite Shel Silverstein poem:

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,

Listen to the DON'TS

Listen to the SHOULDN'TS 

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS

Listen to the NEVER HAVES, 

Then listen close to me-

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.