This will probably come as a surprise to precisely zero of you, but y’all had talked me into a pompom within like an hour of me posting about them last week. However, if there’s one thing that is certain, it’s that I have a real problem with commitment. So instead of buying a new cover with a pompom, or buying one pompom and sewing it onto my existing cover, I planned a way to make them interchangeable, and I marched right over to Etsy and bought five in various colors and sizes.

Luckily Hillary had ordered the Shire’s Switch It helmet cover when she bought her new skull cap, so I was able to see what method they used for attachment. Changing out pompoms is apparently a popular thing with beanies, but I didn’t trust those attachment methods very much since most involved tying. That didn’t seem particularly stable. But the Switch It cover used metal snaps, which I thought was brilliant. They’re really stable, and easy to attach. So I popped over to Amazon and bought some black (because that’s closest to navy) metal 1″ snaps, which for some reason a pack of 20 was the same price as a pack of 5, so… sold.

When I was researching pompoms and attachment methods, I did find several tutorials for making your own pompoms, if you’re into that. I am not, considering that I paid $4 per pom. It’s worth $4 to me to not have to deal with that part. Still though, it’s an option if you’re extra crafty. There are also plenty of other attachment methods out there if you don’t like snaps, I just thought this one was the easiest and most streamlined way to change the poms without having to remove the cover. Feel free to pick a different attachment method if you so choose.

$20 worth of pompoms and $5 worth of snaps later, I brought my helmet home, dug out my sewing kit, and planned my method of attack.

First things first: figuring out which side of the snap I wanted to attach to the helmet cover and which side of the snap I wanted to attach to the poms. I used the helmet cover I already have, mostly because I really love it. I have vents in my skull cap that I like to keep open, so my cover has mesh along the middle to allow for better airflow. It’s also just the right shade of navy to match the rest of my navy, and any navy lover knows how crucial that is. Buying a new cover was not something I wanted to do. After playing around with each way to do the snaps, I decided that I wanted the “outie” of the snap on the helmet. That side sat more flush to the slightly curving surface of the helmet, which seemed to make it more stable, and it was easy to sew onto the mesh. The Switch It helmet cover has the snaps the opposite way, with the “outie” on the pom, but I don’t know that it actually matters… whichever way seems easiest or most stable to you.

If you’re very anti-sewing, you could probably use a sturdy craft glue instead. I myself HATE sewing, my mother was really into it and forced me to learn as a kid. While I appreciate her effort to give me life skills, I have never liked it or found it remotely enjoyable. However, even I – someone who sucks at crafting and hates sewing – would say this project is stupid easy. If you can sew on a button, you can do this.

If you’re worried about what the snap looks like if you chose to go without a pom, it’s REALLY hard to see. From 10′ away it would look like a button. But if it really bothers you, you could easily sew some fabric on the top side of a snap and make a removable fabric “button” for when you go pom-less. I was originally going to do that, but the snap is so hard to see that I think it’s not worth my effort.

Once you get one side of the snap on the cover, all that’s left to do is get the other side of the snap onto the poms. Please be smarter than me and figure out which side of the snap needs to face out on the pompom. I sewed mine on upside down TWICE and had to remove them and flip it over and sew again, cursing myself each time. (I told you I’m not good at crafting)

Pretty much any pom you buy will have strings or yarn on the bottom side. A lot of people use those strings for attaching them to beanies, but since I was sewing a snap onto the bottom, I just cut them off.

But the strings are useful to help you find the middle of the bottom, where you need to sew the snap. I put the snap directly over where the strings came out, so I knew I was in the right spot.

Once I got the snap situated, I grabbed my needle and thread and went to work. There’s nothing particularly tricky about sewing these on, just make sure that you’re going through the actual fabric of the pom and not just the fur. It’s easy to feel the difference as you’re sewing, since it’s harder to push the needle through the fabric. I also took care as I was pulling each stitch tight to make sure there wasn’t any fur trapped in the loop of the stitch. If there is, you can just comb through the fur with the needle and it’ll come out.

I only did about 5 stitches per hole of the snap and that was enough to get those suckers attached really well. I pulled on the snaps quite hard and they didn’t budge, so I figure that was sufficient. Feel free to do more than that, but have I mentioned how much I hate sewing? And who really cares how the sewing looks, its the bottom of the pom, so just get it on there tight and be done with it.

Once I got the learning curve down, sewing the snaps on went really fast. It was taking me about 6 minutes per pom. Really easy, y’all. Nothing to it. I loved this project, because it’s about as close to instant gratification as you can get.

All total, if you started the clock when I was gathering all my supplies and kept it running all the way to the very end when I was taking pictures, I dedicated about an hour and half to this project. And that includes the two that I sewed on backwards the first time, and when I had to stop and chase down the cat to retrieve the navy pompom. So little time (and only about $25) invested, and now I have six possible “looks” for my helmet – no pom, rainbow pom,  navy and white pom, yellow pom, green pom, or navy pom. And uh… I might already be on etsy looking at a couple more. A girl can never have too many poms right?

The best part? THE VIDEO MONTAGE! LOOK AT THEM ALL!

Not saying this is the best DIY I’ve ever attempted, but… it totally is. So easy, and yet so gratifying. I have no regrets about my new snap-on pom life. Pom Club – I have arrived.