Tassel-It with Dazzle-It

When Miss Carmi comes calling, I always answer!

This girl is very creative and full of ideas and so sweet to boot! She works with John Bead and Envirotex to promote and introduce new products. Miss Carmi contacted me about a new product that is coming out from John Bead and the Dazzle-It line that are tassels. I understand that tassels and fringe will be big in 2014 fashion, so I was willing to give it a shot.


I received a full package of tassels in many different colors, along with some coordinating lengths of faux suede and some clasps. For now, I stuck with the tassels themselves.

The first thing I made was a Christmas ornament. I admit it. I cheated a little. I had made the decorated bezel (from Nunn Design) last year as part of my time in the Nunn Design Innovation Team. To make the bezel I filled it with a two-part jewelry clay, like this set from Envirotex, embedded chatons and rubbed fine glitter into it. I had a completely different handmade tassel on the bottom that I really didn't care for because, well, it looked like a deranged jellyfish with tentacles waving. These tassels are so much nicer! I like that it looks very polished and professional and consistent. But the white was just a bit too stark. Part of getting products like this to play with is that I feel I should try to innovate with them whenever I can. So I turned to my overflowing art supplies.

Frosted ornament

I decided to see what would happen if I used alcohol inks on the white tassel. That soaked up quickly! But this didn't give me the ombre effect that I wanted. So I went back and painted two different ink colors on each strand at the bottoms, leaving the top white. For a little added bling, I painted some strands with white glue and sprinkled dusting of fine glitter on them.

The Tickler ring

The totally oddball piece that I created was a ring. I snipped the loop on the top off and then mixed up some jewelry clay to attach it to an adjustable ring base. I added little sparkly AB Swarovski chatons and let it dry overnight. I like zany jewelry, but the tassel was really a tad bit too high to make it wearable. But my officemate Laura gave me the idea of trimming the tops, even handing me her scissors to do it! We decided that this would be double duty as a cocktail ring and could also be used as a little duster for your keyboard. Maybe there is a new market to be explored... office bling! ;-)

Honor What is in your Heart purse fob

While I was modifying the first two, I decided that I would try to keep it simple (I know! That is hard for me to do!) and just see about adding it directly to a project. They are really fun to add a little bit of color, texture and movement, and with the loop at the top and the metal color, they can match just about anything. Now I am looking for things to add tassels to! So I just added the tassel to the bottom of a new Simple Truths piece that I was working on that says 'honor what is in your heart'. On my table nearby was an embossed and painted wing, a rhinestone flower and a little crystal teardrop. I just gathered them all up and added a large lobster claw clasp at the top. I meant this to be a purse fob (although it could work as a key chain as well). This would make a wonderful present for someone special for Christmas, don't you think?

I am feel very generous today, so I think that I will give away the purse fob pictured above to one lucky commenter on this post. Winner will be selected at random from all comments with an email for contacting and will be mailed out in time for Christmas gifting! Winner will be announced on Monday, December 16th.

Thank you Miss Carmi, for the chance to play with these new products! Be sure to hop over to the Dazzle-It blog for a list of all the participants in this hop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For more information about Dazzle-it products visit www.dazzle-it.com or their blog http://blog.dazzle-it.com. They are on Facebook, too, with regular give-a-ways: www.facebook.com/Dazzleit.

[Disclosure: I received the Dazzle-It products mentioned in this post for free from John Bead in consideration for review.]