Feb 22, 2012 12:00:00 AM

Truffula Trees!

For the past few weeks, I have been planning Dr. Seuss's Birthday Bash for my school. We will be celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday with a week of reading celebrations. To add to the fun, I wanted to incorporate some Dr. Seuss-themed decorations into my library space. I've seen many cute truffula tree projects on Pinterest so I decided to give truffula trees a whirl.

Here is what I came up with:

I'm thrilled with how they came out! I may have developed a truffula tree addiction and want to spend all day tomorrow making more trees.

I initially thought I would use paper towel rolls to make small truffula trees. Then I thought big trees would be more fun. The first tree trunks I thought of using were pool noodles but I couldn't find any in stores yet. The next best thing I could think of was foam insulation for plumbing. I popped over to Home Depot and tracked down plumbing insulation. Turns out, it's super cheap! I got a pack of 4 3' insulators for $2.47 and the taller 6' insulators for $1.28 each. Then I found some yellow duct tape...perfect! I also picked up some $1 packs of tissue paper from the Christmas Tree Shop.

Here's how I went about making my truffula trees:

First, I used Martha Stewart's instructions for tissue paper pom-poms. The only change I made was to keep the floral wire long to attach the pom-poms to the foam insulators.

I used all of the same color tissue paper for some pom-poms:

and alternated light and dark shades for others:

I wrapped the foam insulators with the yellow duct tape:

Then I attached the pom-poms to the "trunks". The foam insulators are hollow, so I stuck the ends of the floral wire through the center of the foam tube and poked them through to the outside.