Embellished Tassels for the Holidays

Leisure Arts in-house designer Anne and I are on an odd holiday project kick. We’re repurposing salt shakers and pie birds (sometimes the stuff I collect comes in handy!) with purchased tassels and some trimmings to create some really cool embellished tassels that you could use anywhere.

Fall Tassel

Imagine turning this tassel right from the store…

…into this! Too easy! For a fun Fall tassel, Anne used a pumpkin salt shaker, a raffia tassel, some pretty trims, a length of ribbon, some craft glue, and a bead.

All you do is:

1. Glue some pretty trims around the top of the tassel. (Anne snipped off the top two rounds of our tassel before she glued on the trim.)

2. Tie a loop of ribbon around the top of the tassel, run ends of ribbon up through the pumpkin, and out through the holes the salt comes out of. Run the ends through a bead and tie a knot to secure.

Christmas Tassel

Does this little pink pie bird say Christmas to you? Well, it didn't to me until I took it to Anne and told her what I wanted…

And how cool is this Pie Bird Tassel (or pretty Christmas Ornament) now?

You can whip one up in no time yourself with a pie bird, a store-bought tassel, some pretty trim, ribbons, red and green scrap felt, a hole punch, red thread, craft glue, and two sizes of beads.

1. Glue some pretty trim around the top of the tassel.

2. Loop some ribbon through the loop of the tassel, up through the pie bird, and out through the hole in the pie bird's mouth. Run the ends through a bead and tie a knot to secure.

3. Anne made our pie bird even more Christmasy by tying a ribbon around its neck and gluing on a handmade holly sprig. To make the holly, cut some holly leaves from green felt and use a hole punch to make berries from red felt. Using red sewing thread, sew red beads to the berries and tack the berries to the leaves.