DIY Silk Tassel Garland

Must all holiday garlands have pine and juniper greens? To me, sprays of pine look just like tassels from nature. So why not have garlands with silk tassels? And silver or gold chains? Like this:

This was so easy to make! First I surfed for tassel garland inspiration, and shared that in a previous blog post. I wanted a look that had a little bling so I knew I wanted to make garland with a chain. I found this huge silver chain at Joann in a sewing notions aisle.

You might not find a chain this big and chunky in the jewelry aisle. But I would recommend looking for a chain with huge links like the one I used. This is because your tassel is less likely to get tangled. You know how frustrating it is when a 18″ necklace chain gets tangled? Imagine those tangles in a garland many yards long! This chain does not tangle. It’s pricey so I used a half-off coupon to buy it.

Aren’t the silk tassels the most gorgeous lustrous colors?! I found them at Woman Shops World Etsy shop. Carter, the woman who runs this shop, has many unique global things you might be interested in. She has silk tassels in dozens of colors. I chose a custom palette of various olives, greens, oranges and a brown. There are also blues, magentas, reds, purples – any color you want.

This project is so simple, it has three supplies:

• Big chunky chain
• Tassels
• Jump rings

I simply attached the tassels to the chain on every fourth link with a jump ring:

Make sure you lay your chain flat while you work, and attach the tassels on the “same side” of the chain, like you see here where all the tassels are attached to the “bottom” of the links:

That was it! Just count the links and attach a tassel. I pulled out tassel colors randomly, no particular order. There were a lot of tassels and yards of chain:

But because this project is so easy, it went quickly. You can do it while watching a movie.

If you don’t have anywhere to hang a garland, I think it looks pretty all piled up in a bowl:

This shot should explain the choice of tassel colors:

Yeah, she totally knows she’s being photographed. She acts all nonchalant – look at that “who gives a care about your garland?” face – but believe me, she was posing the whole time. (And the camera in this phone is not what it used to be, yikes, has more grain than my cereal!)

I hope you try making tassel garland. It’s a great twist on Christmas garlands and it can also be used to decorate for parties.