Locker Room: Tassels Anyone?

October 17, 2014 by colortypes 10 Comments

Salutations! Sophie here and thank you for taking the time to join me today. Love tassels? I do! I think they make a great embellishment for scrapbooking projects and I love creating my own from scratch.

I love the twine that was included in this month’s kit. Using it, a pair of scissors, a piece of cardboard and some other embroidery floss, I made tassels for the following page:

Here’s how you can make your own too:

1. Cut a piece of cardboard (length of cardboard = length of tassel). Cut a small slit at the top of the cardboard and attach one end of the twine through the slit.

2. Wind your twine around the cardboard about 12 times (more rounds = fuller tassel).  Ensure that the last round ends at the bottom of the cardboard.

3. Using a short piece of floss (about 15cm), slide it under all the loops and pull it to the top.

4. Tie a secure knot at the top.

5. Remove the tassel from the cardboard. Be careful to keep the shape of the tassel.

6. Using another piece of twine, wind 3 rounds near the top of the tassel, before securing it with a knot. Cut through all the twine at the bottom.

And you are done! Cluster your tassels to add greater dimension to your page. If you rather they not swing around too much, staple them on. Here, my tassels help to draw attention to all the tiled black triangles on the page, while adding some playfulness at the same time.

I love how tassels add color to a page and soften the overall feel of the layout.

 

Tassels can be made from other materials too – like the glassine bag I found in my kit. On this page, I stringed the tassels in a row to resemble poms-poms and stapled them at the bottom of the page.

I love how it appears as if the tassels are swaying pom-poms, to cheer my little girl on, as she learns to write.

 

To create these glassine tassels,

1. Cut a strip of paper along the length of the bag (wider strip = longer tassel). If you want to add color to your tassels, now is a good time to paint them.

2. Snip along the length of the paper, leaving a little margin at the top. To save time, you can fold your paper in half or thirds before doing this.

3. Unfold your paper if you have folded it. Roll paper into a coil tightly and seal the end with a little glue.

4. Finish the tassel by wrapping the top with a little washi tape or patterned paper if you like.

 

There you have it. Handmade embellishments ready to grace your next page. Have fun making your own tassels and do leave a comment and share your projects that include tassels too!