Boutique Tassels - Tutorial

The Soul Sisters convened for my birthday at the beginning of the month. 4 out of 5 sisters celebrated the afternoon away at Marzipan's house (maybe our last gathering there before she moves!) We ate Devil's Food Cake with Oreo Icing



and learned how to make tassels. For reals, it was the best day ever.

Want to join us? Okay, we'll need to gather some supplies:

Boutique Tassles

Various trims, ribbons, and do-dads
A small terra cotta pot or knick knack with a base
Glue gun



I found these ceramic fleur-de-lis things at the Dollar Tree for our day of tassel making, but my first tassel was made with a mini-terra cotta pot as you'll see in most of the photos.

We take our tassels seriously...just look at the concentration. I believe this is the only birthday party ever where a craft table was whipped out from hiding and each guest traveled with their own glue gun.



I'm not even going to try to make this complicated. Listen, just do this:

hot glue random trims and fringes around an object.

There. That's all there is to it! Seriously. See?

Begin with your longest stuff and end with the shortest stuff:



Now, there are a bunch of variations. Like, glue the same trim around your object upside down:



Now, flip it over and it looks a little thicker:



Try looping some ribbons here and there:



Add some beaded trim, some pom-pom trim, anything you want. You can even make some ribbons dangle from the bottom. Just layer and layer, keep it interesting with lots of textures and shapes. Use your imagination! When using the terra cotta pot, you can layer all the way to the top.



Once I reached the top I glued a little bird ornament up there (it is actually the bottom of the pot since we turned it upside down). I, then, turned some feathery trim upside down and glued it around the tippy top. Look, it made a nest for my birdie!

The bird came with a string to hang it, easy peesy!



Now, look at some of the tassels we made with the ceramic figures!



We followed the same concept and glued trim just around the base. We layered, and layered...



Note: Trim is expensive! Start to collect your trims over time. Look in the clearance aisles in your craft and fabric stores, wait for things to go on sale, use your coupons!

Now, don't forget Tutorial Tuesday tomorrow. Grab a button and link up your own tutorials. "Teach me stuff" and you could win a prize. Oh, and it's a great prize this week...

You can find even more great ideas over at Kimba's place, click the button: