I have been endlessly eyeing these chic straw market tote bags with gigantic bright pom-poms on them. I scroll through instagram and see them popping up in style bloggers’ posts and on celebrities, but I couldn’t justify spending an arm and a leg on what is essentially a beach bag. I decided to try and make one myself after sourcing some inexpensive straw market totes on Amazon. Making the pom-poms is super easy, but since these were so big and there several of them to make, I decided to finally invest in a pom-pom maker — and it was totally worth the $7. The pom-pom maker made the DIY process go super fast, and I think it created a much more dense, uniform result. After making each pom-pom, I simply used two pieces of the string to tie a pin to the back of each one and attached them to the tote bag (hot glue would work too, but I liked the flexibility of being able to switch around the colors, or take them off all together!).  With all of them materials, the whole project came in under $40 — and I think it looks like a million bucks! (If you don’t have a pom-pom maker, follow these instructions to make them by hand).
read more