This project is not for a shy minimalist. This is for a muppet who wants to get organized. I’ve always believed that I was the kind of person who was not able to be clean and organized, and I’m trying to challenge that belief. To get started I wanted a project that was bright, silly, fun — and useful. Tassels are a girls best friend and I made about 116 of them in different shades of coral using white yarn and Rit Dye in coral. Following the instructions on the back I made a group of light coral strands, medium strands and deep coral strands. You can obviously use any kind of yarn, I just had never dyed yarn before and wanted to try it out. It’s awesome and easy.
To make the tassels I wrapped yarn around four fingers five times, then cut. Then I folded it in half, took another small piece of yarn and tied it — making it a tassel.
I used one of my daughter’s swaddling cloths as fabric to cover the board. I sprayed adhesive on it, wrapped it around the entire board, covering the frame it came with. You do have some time to make sure there aren’t any creases but I recommend ironing it before you place it on your board.
Think of the tassel in two parts — a lady’s head and a lady’s dress. (I looked on the internet for another way to put this, but it is officially called a “head” and a “skirt,” so there ya go.)
I put glue on the back of the lady A’s head and put it down where the frame is. Then, I covered lady A’s head with lady B’s skirt by gluing down lady B’s skirt on the frame as well.
I figured out how many tassels I would need by lining up tassels on one side and using measuring tape to see how many more I would need on the other sides of the board. It ended up being pretty accurate.
My dog was not a fan of this project and tried to distract me by rolling on the tassels.
I chose white and green (green and coral! love!) antique buttons to make some interesting tacks. I used a glue gun to glue the back of the button to the tack.
For some of them I added white yarn by taking four strands, gluing it in the space where the button was attached to the tack, wrapping it and tying it once.
You could use any color, you could braid the yarn — the possibilities are endless. I like the way this plain white yarn looks with this green button and fabric swatch.
I like a simple button for this picture. I sent it out with a little poem I wrote (using original A Beautiful Mess App) for my daughter. It reminds me to keep going and keep making things.
Lark Bloom 