Big Decorative Tassel Tutorial

So I found this cute little birdie at Michaels in my fav color~ green.

He was just a few dollars and I thought he would make the cutest tassel.

Last night I finished the project.

I made a little tutorial as I went along to share with ya'll.

There are a thousand ways to make these tassels so feel free to share your ideas as well.

This way worked out great for me with the supplies that I had on hand.

Here's what you need:

*A cute "figurine"

*Variety of fringe trims and ribbons

*Some kind of a base to adhere your figurine to. (Can be a wooden candlestick holder or anything you have on had that fits the size of your figurine. I used an empty plastic sour cream tub because it was perfectly sized, lightweight and on hand)

*Glue stick and gun

*Strong adhesive for bonding the figurine to the base

*If your figurine doesn't have holes in it to tie a ribbon for hanging (mine already did) and it happens to me made out of wood, you can screw in an eye hook for hanging.

Here's what I used:

Notice that I forgot to include the adhesive in the picture, so I just wrote it in.

I used E6000 which has warning notices all over the bottle.

It does have a very strong scent, so I went out to the garage when using it and put on my

"old man mowing the yard" mask which helped.

(which may or may not be upside down????

Don't know which way those things are supposed to go!)

So just use whatever strong adhesive you are comfortable with.

Oh, I forgot to put a glue gun and sticks in the pic as well. Opps~

Step 1~ Adhere the Figurine to the base with strong adhesive and let dry

Step 2~ Make a puffy "base fringe" to fill up the base~

How you go about this will depend on what size you want your tassel to be and what supplies you have.

I wanted a big, puffy tassel and had the entire sour cream cup I needed to fill up.

Plus I didn't have a lot of "puffy" fringe on hand.

So I used eyelash yarn for knitting.

I made a pompom ball, only I didn't cut mine into a ball shape, but left it as a bell shape instead. (I did this by tying my string through the loops rather than around the whole pompom ball.)

Then I hot glued it up into the base of the sr. cream cup.

Step 3~ Add fringe and ribbons~

Again, this will just depend on what you have on hand.

I got that fantastic tulle trim and burlap trim from this shop.

So I hot glued the burlap into 3 loops and adhered them to the base.

Next start hot gluing on your various trims and ribbons working around and around the base. Make it as thick, colorful, puffy, skinny, crazy as you want.

At this point my husband, Josh, walked by and asked, " What is that?"

"It's a tassel" I said.

"Who's it for? Paul Bunyan?" he asked.

Yes, it is big and puffy, and I love it that way!

But it needed a bow. So I made one out of that fantastic burlap with a pretty ribbon as the center. Then just hot glued it on.

Step 4~ Tidy up loose ends~

Now I trimmed up the eyelash yarn base, shaping it and trimming off the excessively long strands.

Then I tied a ribbon (I used eyelash yarn again) through the top for hanging.

Here is when Josh walked by again and asked if it was supposed to look like that.

Well, I guess there is no particular way that it is supposed to look. Just make it look however you want it to look. I wanted it to look big and puffy and that is how it turned out. :)

The final look:

Would love to hear your ideas/questions!

Cheers~