DIY Rainbow Pool Noodle Headboard

I got this inspiration from @jessiegirlhome and LOVED what she made! Our first baby was born last year, she was our rainbow baby and a real miracle. We've loved rainbows ever since!

Her birthday is coming up and we are doing a pumpkin/rainbow theme with soft colors. I knew this would be perfect.

I'll walk you through all the steps, but if you want to skip down to the finished pictures, just scroll all the way down! 

Materials

• Pool noodles (I ended up using 8)

• Chunky yarn (I tried this with a thick yarn, but it just wasn't chunky enough and it took FOREVER to wrap. The Yarn Bee Eternal Bliss worked great) 

• Hot glue, A LOT

• Duct tape

• Scissors

• Cotton rope, thick (mine was 5/8" from Amazon)

• Plywood or wood for backing when finished

STEP 1

Get your pool noodles (I found mine at Lowe's for $2 but you could use Dollar Store or Walmart), scissors, and tape. This is where you'll first shape the rainbow. 

If you look at the smallest layer, you can see I used a full pool noodle plus a little bit of another. You can use one pool noodle as your smallest layer to make it easier. I just wanted a little bigger size. 

Cut and tape your pool noodle to the desired shape. This is an IMPORTANT step because if you cut wrong, you won't have enough pool noodles. 

STEP 2

One noodle at a time, you'll wrap the chunky yarn around it and hot glue it every 3-5 rotations. This is the step where I realized I was using thin yarn instead of super chunky. Once I made the switch, the wrapping went by SO much faster.

Tip:

Twist the pool noodle instead of trying to wrap the yarn. I laid the noodle on one leg and spun it around while holding the yarn in place. This was way easier than trying to maneuver the yarn around it. 

STEP 3

Once all the noodles are wrapped (this will take a few hours or days in my case), line them up again to form the rainbow. Clear a good area where you can work to glue it together. 

STEP 4

The longest step is here! You'll be hot gluing each noodle to the next and permanently securing the rainbow! My mom was in town this week, so luckily she helped out. 

We did the smallest layer first and glued it to the second layer. I would only put about 4-6" of glue on at a time and then hold it together for 1-2 minutes to make sure it stayed. 

STEP 5

Glue all layers together and let fully dry. Step 4 and 5 go together and require PATIENCE. We used some clamps to hold the arch together as we glued too. 

STEP 6

Take your cotton rope and cut it to your desired fringe length. For the fringe, you will fold over the rope and glue it into the hold at the end of the noodle. 

Since I wanted thick fringe like jessiegirlhome, I place two strands of rope into each hole. I took one strand, doubled it over, then glue the folded part into the hole. She said to use a "generous" amount of hot glue, so I blasted it and sacrificed a few burnt fingers for a minute. 

You can get the fringe look many ways—if you want to do one strand of rope you can, or use yarn that matches instead. 

After the rope is glued in, you can unravel it and fray it out. 

The final step was to put a piece of backing onto the back of the rainbow (we hot glued it and Jonathan added some screws as well for reinforcement.) The end!! 

The white rope did have some dirty finger marks, so if you try this make sure to keep your hands clean but know that some marks are inevitable. Colored yarn may fix that! 

Jessiegirlhome also used some wire to shape her arch. We didn't use that, so we'll see how it holds up as we use it for our baby's headboard and decor. 

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think of our pool noodle rainbow DIY headboard!