Get Away Car Giddiness

Photos of wedding get-away cars make my heart flutter (which you'd think, as a nurse, might concern me a bit . . .). There is just something about objects tied to the back of a car that screams "wedding" (which now that it's written down, sounds ridiculous [as ridiculous as pine trees in your living room for Christmas and eggs to celebrate Easter, I guess]).

Silly or not, I love the idea of a get-away car.

[Awesome car pics from here, here & here]

Granted, all of those cars are old classics, bumping the cuteness factor up by about 73.4%, even without any decorations. And the Pin Cushion were working with  my 2000 black Honda Civic (give it a few decades and it will be a classic too, right?). So, to make up for my not-as-cute car, we went for the cutest decorations, which Mr. Pin Cushion thought was the yarn pom poms.

Mr. Pin Cushion took over making the decorations. And while he looked online for good pom-pom directions, he didn't like any of them. They all call for wrapping the yarn around your fingers, and Mr. PC said that about 7 seconds into the process, he lost circulation to his fingers. So, here is Mr. PC's more 'engineer-ish' method for making pom-poms.

Start with: scissors, yarn, and some sticks (we used the yard stick for big pom-poms and the spatula for little pom poms)

Cut a piece of yarn about 8" long and tape it at the ends to the stick of choice (pom-pom yoda Mr. PC had a method which didn't require tape, but I wasn't that skilled).

 

Start wrapping yarn around the stick, trying to keep it even.

 

Keep wrapping.  Prevent boredom from setting in by watching How I Met Your Mother, or rooting for cutie-pie on Kent on So You Think You Can Dance. We never counted how many times we wrapped the yarn (a lot). But the thicker you wrap it, the denser your pom-pom will be, so experiment a bit.

Untape the ends of the yarn and slide the whole thing off the stick. Make sure you know where the ends of the 8" yarn piece are! (It looks like a strange green cocoon at this point).

Take the ends of the 8" yarn piece and tie them together (don't knot them yet), making a doughnut out of the lovely cocoon.

 

Now, finesse it a bit to tighten up the loop, making a doughnut hole from the previous doughnut (mmm . . . doughnut holes . . .). Tie the ends in a tight knot.

 

 Start cutting the loops . . .

 

Work your way around the doughnut hole, cutting all of the loops.

 

Ta-da! Sit back and look in awe at the cute pom-pom ball you just created.  You can even out the ends a bit if you want, but we liked this look (Mr. PC's method seemed to require much less trimming than the other online-finger methods, which seemed to always come out wonky).

 

Keep making them till you have a pile of cute pom-poms. I wanted to stick googly eyes on all of them and give them names. And maybe carry them around with me as pets.

For the wedding, we had our bridal crew tie them onto yarn and attach them to our car, plus my maid of honor made a sweet "Just Married" sign for us. I'll show you the final product, get-away and all, when we get our photos back.

Are you decorating your wedding day car in a special way?