Hi everyone. It's Verity here from Pretty Little Button bringing you another project. For the post today I am using the leatherette sheets from Silhouette. When my first Design Team parcel arrived and I went through all the items I had been sent, I can assure you I stopped and looked at the leatherette for quite some time! It's a gorgeous media and the colour of the gold is beautiful. For me, it is almost a rose gold. As soon as I saw the sheets I knew I would need to make some tassels out of them, perfect to hang on your keys. The post today is very quick and easy, so you'll be making tassels galore!
Faux leather Bag tassel details:
Start of by drawing a rectangle and changing the size to your desired dimensions. I went for a 7 cm by 5 cm rectangle. As these were going to be attached to my keys, I didn't want them to big and bulky.
To create the tassel threads, draw a straight vertical line using the line tool with ctrl selected. Adjust the line so the length is 1 cm smaller than the height of your rectangle. Next, replicate this line several times using the replicate panel. They will appear directly next to one another, but we can easily space these out.
Move one of the replicated lines to the opposite end of your rectangle. Selected all the lines, including this lonely one, but do not select your rectangle. Using the transform panel and spacing section, selection the horizontal spacing button. This will now space your lines out from were the bulk is to where the lonely line is. You can keep repeating this until you have your tassel threads as thing as you want.
When you are happy with the tassel shape and width, send this to your machine and cut it out. My tassels ending up being just under 2mm wide and the machine had no problem cutting this thin.
For my tassels, I used the cutting settings in the pre-programmed 'Leatherette', though I adjust the speed a little. This was ok with the design as it was all straight lines, but you may not want to do this with other more intricate designs. Remember, always do a test cut!
Assembling the tassels:
Before I had assembled my tassels I added some foil to my tassel using some transfer gel and heat reactive foil in a laminator. Cut a thin strip of extra leather to loop through a hook or clip, you will want to fold this over and glue up near the clip to make it more secure. Add a little glue to one end of the underside of your cut out tassel - a glue gun works well for this. Attach the other end of the leather strip. Add glue along the top edge underside of the tassels (the uncut strip at the top of your rectangle), and roll around the thread.
Start of by drawing a rectangle and changing the size to your desired dimensions. I went for a 7 cm by 5 cm rectangle. As these were going to be attached to my keys, I didn't want them to big and bulky.
To create the tassel threads, draw a straight vertical line using the line tool with ctrl selected. Adjust the line so the length is 1 cm smaller than the height of your rectangle. Next, replicate this line several times using the replicate panel. They will appear directly next to one another, but we can easily space these out.
Move one of the replicated lines to the opposite end of your rectangle. Selected all the lines, including this lonely one, but do not select your rectangle. Using the transform panel and spacing section, selection the horizontal spacing button. This will now space your lines out from were the bulk is to where the lonely line is. You can keep repeating this until you have your tassel threads as thing as you want.
When you are happy with the tassel shape and width, send this to your machine and cut it out. My tassels ending up being just under 2mm wide and the machine had no problem cutting this thin.
For my tassels, I used the cutting settings in the pre-programmed 'Leatherette', though I adjust the speed a little. This was ok with the design as it was all straight lines, but you may not want to do this with other more intricate designs. Remember, always do a test cut!
Assembling the tassels:
Before I had assembled my tassels I added some foil to my tassel using some transfer gel and heat reactive foil in a laminator. Cut a thin strip of extra leather to loop through a hook or clip, you will want to fold this over and glue up near the clip to make it more secure. Add a little glue to one end of the underside of your cut out tassel - a glue gun works well for this. Attach the other end of the leather strip. Add glue along the top edge underside of the tassels (the uncut strip at the top of your rectangle), and roll around the thread.
Until next time,
Verity
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