Pool Noodle Decorations

I can’t believe Mike is almost 1. I pretty much want to sing Sunrise Sunset daily. We are planning his pool party birthday party and since I’m unemployed I have copious amounts of time to surf Pinterest and tackle some DIY projects. I think I am going to tell people I quit my job JUST to plan my son’s first birthday. It sounds better than saying the job market sucks.

ANYWHO … I found the easiest, cheapest, cutest decoration I want to share with you. You know those bloggers who have fancy cameras that take professional looking pictures? And the crafting bloggers who have perfectly manicured nails and a fabulous backdrop?

Yeah. This ain’t that tutorial. Also, this is not my original idea and I am sure there are easier ways to do this, but you might think that my steps are easier. You know. For Muddling Mommas and Daddy-Os.

Here’s what you need:

Pool Noodles – I got ours at the Dollar Tree and they just happened to have one that looks like a flower. Score!
Fishing Line – Any weight will do
Sharp Knife – All of our’s are kinda dull, so I had to use a ridiculously large one.
Skewer – Or anything that is long and sharp. I was not about to drive around looking for a ‘long needle’
Ruler
Sharpie/Pen/Marker

Using the ruler and Sharpie mark off in 1/2 inch increments. I used 1/2 inch, but I am sure you can go thicker, but I envision anything thinner will be challenging in the next steps.

Slice the noodle on the marks – or close enough. This project is pretty forgiving when it comes to accurate measurements. It’s easy to do the cutting as if you are sawing, it shouldn’t take much effort. I tossed all the pieces into a basket, grabbed my fishing line and skewer and snuggled into bed.

Now is a good time to start a movie or begin watching How I Met Your Mother from season 1 episode 1. Using the skewer, punch a hole on one end of a noodle slice and pull through. I am sure there are other productive ways to do this, but I punched holes in every slice then threaded them. You could possibly do the holes in one slice, then thread, then another slice, then thread. But my method worked for me.

Once they were all ‘holed’, I started threading the slices on my fishing line. I didn’t unroll and cut a piece of line, but it’s still way easy to get all tangled. I unspooled a bunch of line, then taped spool so it didn’t keep unrolling while I threaded. Make sense?

This is the tedious part, sometimes you will need to poke holes again. Just make sure the end of your line is straight because it tends to get kinked up and you have to cut it down.