I made a mum for my daughter for homecoming this year in my hometown and I wanted to share this SUPER easy and FAST tutorial for a Homecoming Mum. This was made to be very small and light so that a little girl could wear it and forget about it. My daughter loves to play with it and it looks so adorable for the big game!
If you use my tutorial, please share on Instagram and tag me @thechildatheartletters so I can see. 🙂
For a mum or garter the supplies are really up to you. I used lots of orange, black, and silver because those are the Bulldog’s colors. You will need a mum flower, lots of ribbon, hot glue, and then sticker or iron-on letters, bells or footballs to hang on the ribbon, stickers, and other things to add to your mum. Get creative with it and let your kids help you pick out something special for their mum or garter.
First I cut a small circle out of card stock by just tracing around the ribbon spool. My circle was about 4 inches in diameter but the size is really up to you. Like I said, this is for an elementary or pre-k age girl or boy so you don’t need to make it very big.
First, cut one color of ribbon and fold it like I have shown. Glue these pieces in a circular pattern all the way around. Make sure the loop part sticks out from the card stock. This will form the background for your mum flower.
Next, take your flower or mum apart and then hot glue it, one layer at a time, to the center of the card stock circle over the ribbons. I hot glued a white A for Allie in the center of the mum but you can glue anything they like on it, an initial, football, etc.
Next, you need to lay out all of your different ribbons to see what you want them to look like. Once you decide how you want them positioned, go ahead and hot glue them to the center of the back of the card stock circle. Remember that if you are making this for a small girl or boy you need to keep it simple. The length of the ribbon is up to you but none of mine were more than ten inches long.
For her center ribbon, I wanted to put her name on it. I used some really fun glitter, iron-on letters to put her name on the larger ribbon down the center. You could also use stickers for this but they won’t stay on as long as the iron-on letters.
I then arranged the ribbons all along the bottom of the mum and then hot glued them to the back. I trimmed them all to be about the same length and tied a tiny football to the bottom of one ribbon.
I added a loop to the back so that I could pin the mum to her shirt. The back of the mum will look kind of messy but no one will see it! 🙂 If you are making a garter for a boy, you can just glue the garter to the back or even use a hair elastic if it’s for a little tiny guy!
**These were the original mums for my blog post back in 2011. I used stamps and paint for the names on the ribbons but everything else is about the same…except my photography has improved a bit. 🙂
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Thank you for these very helpful instructions gonna make my boys a garter and I will post pics
Hey Amanda! Yeah please post pics!
It doesn’t let me post pictures if you email me I can email them to you amyers0807@gmail.com
Thank you for your ideas, I was living in El Paso before moving to Dumas and I love the small town feeling its great, the people are so warm, I moved from Chicago to el Paso and over there they don’t use mums, until I came to Texas discovered the Mums, I started to make them for mi girls, but now they all grown ups with kids of their own and I making them mums and garters.
That’s so crazy! Yeah mums are tons of fun! I can’t believe you lived in El Paso and Dumas…I hope you love Dumas…I did! 🙂
Oh my I grew up in Childress and both of my sisters lived in Dumas!
Hey Mary! That’s crazy! I live in El Paso now but I loved living in Dumas while I was there…great little town. I miss the snow 🙂
I would also love to see pictures if you make a mum! 🙂
It’s great to hear you ladies making ur own mum’s I live in South Dakota and they never heard be of mum’s so I make mum’s for the kids who want them plus Dumas is a nice quiet place to live my best friend just got engaged to Doc he works at the clinic there. When I make mine I ask the parent what the kids like and I do ninja turtle themes Western I’ll have to post when done but a little idea I buy small flowers for the smaller mum’s and I order the bigger mum’s off internet or go to hobby lobby
Very helpful.. thanks
Hey girl! I’m glad it was helpful. If you make a mum please share pictures…I would love to see it!
Thank you! I grew up in NY and now live in Texas. My daughter is a freshman and I had no idea what a big deal this is. I followed your instructions, and her mum came out great! Thank you for saving this clueless mom!
Oh PLEASE share pictures! I would love to see it 🙂