DIY Pom Pom Party Hats inspired by “Edmond, The Moonlit Party”

“Edmond, The Moonlit Party” by Astrid Desbordes and Marc Boutavant

Edmond is a shy squirrel who loves making pompoms (especially pompom hats) and nut jam.  He lives in a huge tree in the middle apartment with bear and owl and other than the fact that he’s lonely, is very content with his life.

One night, bear throws one of his famous parties and George the Owl stops by Edmond’s and asks him if he’d like to go.  Edmond was feeling rather lonely so he decides to venture out to the party wearing his favorite pompom hat and carrying a jar of his nut jam for a gift.  Once at the party he has a positively wonderful time and comes to the realization that while life alone is nice, it is also nice to be with friends every now and again.

It is so sweet to watch little Edmond learn the value of friends and the richness they can add to life through such a charming story.  It doesn’t hurt that the illustrations are incredibly beautiful as well with their bright colors and retro feel.  Plus, I just adore all the pompoms scattered throughout all the illustrations.

Click here to purchase “Edmond, the Moonlit Party” *affiliate link

DIY PomPom Hats

My little boy is in love with this book.  When we got it he was so excited to read it and he has asked me to read it at least once everyday since we received it.  He even takes it to bed with him in his selection of a few books that I let him look through before he falls asleep after story time.

His favorite part by far in this book are Edmonds pompom creations, especially his pompom hat. I am not surprised.  What kid wouldn’t love the idea of a pom pom hat?!  After we read it the first time I suggested to him that we make our own pompom hats and he was over the moon.  He asked about it over and over again until we finally did it.  Sure, it was only a few days later, however it felt like AGES to him.

Because I used hot glue for the pompoms on the hat (I didn’t want millions of round pompoms constantly falling off after it was made) he didn’t get to be the one to put the pompoms on directly.  I helped ease the disappointment by making him my assistant and having him pick out each individual pompom and hand them to me to place on the hat one at a time.  He still thought that was pretty great.  My favorite part however was when he put it on for the first time and saw what he looked like in the mirror.  Priceless.  Now it is one of his most prized possessions.  I hope you enjoy this simple craft and I hope it brings a smile to your kiddos like it did with mine.

Supplies

• pompoms (I picked up two packs of 74 pompoms of various sizes and we ended up using one whole package and about half of the second for one hat.)
• party hat template printed out on card stock (I used THIS free party hat template from www.polkadotmaker.com)
• hot glue gun and glue (or other strong glue of your choice)
• elastic string
• hole puncher

Process

1. Print of the template for  your party hat HERE and follow the instructions to glue it into a cone.
2. Hole punch an opening on each side of your hat for the string.
3. Tie each end of the elastic string into the holes you just created.  You may want to use your childs head as a reference to make sure the elastic is the correct length.
4. Finally, glue your pompoms on your hat.  We decided to go for a look similar to the one in the book where all you see is pompoms, so we really loaded them on and used a lot of pompoms.  However, I think it also looks great when you just scatter a handful or two of pom pons all over the hat to create a polka-dot look.

If you give this Beyond the Book activity a try I’d love to hear how it goes! Share it on Instagram using hashtag #beyondthebook (I’m on Instagram as @book.nerd.mommy) or even just comment here with your thoughts. It would make my day! Or to simply save for later pin the image below.