MY SOUTHERN ACTUALITY

I am so excited to for this DIY! About two years ago I found a tassel garland on Etsy. I think I probably paid $30-$40. Shudder. Little did I know just how EASY these are to make yourself, and for less than $10. I purchased one for my bedroom, and made one for a girl's trip, but these are so cute for birthday parties, baby showers, and bridal showers. The best part about making your own, is you can completely customize the colors and length to your liking. I made this one for the mimosa bar at our girl's weekend beach trip. I really liked a flag sign I found on Pinterest that said bubbly bar, but I wanted to incorporate some color, so for this garland I combined flags and tassels. The flags came in a pack at Hobby Lobby and I used a chalk-board marker on the gold flags. You could do just tassels for a really cute way to add some color to your room, hang pictures in-between the tassels with clothes pins, or tie one end to a bunch of balloons at a party. There are so many ways to get creative with this and truly make it your own. I honestly was intimidated by this DIY and thought it would be so tedious and time consuming, but I ended up only spending about two hours total on this project.

Supplies:

Tissue paper in color of your choosing (regular, metallic, or both!)

Wire or cord

Hot glue gun

Scissors

Steps:

I chose to do one color at a time. So pick whichever color you want to work on first and unfold the whole pack of tissue paper, but leave them stacked.

Fold the entire pack of tissue paper in half, long ways or "Hot Dog" style.

Cut strips of the same width, leaving about an inch of space left at the top. You can cut all at once or if its too thick you can open your sheet and cut one side at a time toward the fold. Just make sure you are leaving a solid inch in the middle.

In the top picture with the mint tissue paper you can see the ideal amount of space to leave. In the bottom picture with the pink tissue paper you can tell I cut too close. Try to make all the strips consistent in size, but don't freak out if they aren't perfect. I'm left handed so anytime I cut things it ends up looking a little sad, but once you see the final product it really is not noticeable.

Once you have finished cutting, make sure all the tassels are folded down as shown above.

Next, fold the entire strip in half two times.

Roll the strip until it forms a tassel, shown below.

If you chose to use wire, wrap around the top portion of your tassel a couple times, form a loop, and continue wrapping until the top is secure. Be sure the loop is secured under your wrap and won't come loose.

If you chose cord, tie a secure double-knot around the top of the tassel, making sure to leave a few inches of extra cord on your loose end, as shown below. This extra string will be used to form your loop. Leave the other end still attached to your roll of cord.

After you have made a knot, take the excess cord and form a loop over the top of the tassel. While holding it in place, wrap the attached side of the cord over this and around the top multiple times until you feel that it is secured. Hold down the end of your string and hot glue it down. I'm sure there are better, prettier way to do this, and wire may be preferred so no glue shows, but this is what I found easiest.

Let those babies dry!

When you are done you should have cute little, hang-able tassels!

Lastly, loop each tassel through your cord or wire in whatever pattern you like. Add in whatever you want! (The pic below is a store bought one)

And DONE! Hang it up above your bed, use it for table decor at a party, or these would even make super cute classroom decorations. I am going to try a patterned tissue paper and a metallic gold tissue paper on the next one I make. Send me pictures if you try this DIY! As always, thank you so much for reading! Feel free to always share my posts on Facebook or Pinterest. There is a "share" button at the bottom of every post that will let you share to any social media platform. If you have any questions you can leave a comment below or email me in the sidebar. And don't forget to subscribe! :)