Painted Paper Straw and Tassel Necklace

I had some phone book page paper straws left over from making the paper beads for Painted Desert, so I decided to try my hand at a different style of paper bead. Before you begin this project you will need to make paper straws. There are instructions here. Use a paper cutter to trim the phone book pages into squares before you start rolling the pages into straws. 

How-to:

 

#1: Paint the paper straws. If you don't want the printing to show through light colored paint, do a "primer coat" with white paint first.

#2: Cut 14 two inch/5 cm lengths and 5 four inch/10 cm lengths. Cut a 4 foot piece of string.

#3: Using a large heavy needle, string all of the 2 inch beads onto the string.  Position the beads so there is an equal amount of string hanging out each end. 

#4: Thread the other end of the string through a large heavy needle so that you now have a needle at both ends of the string.

#5: Run both strings through each long bead so that they come out of the bead on opposite sides. Continue doing this until all of the large beads have been strung. 

#6: Pull everything tight and make a small knot at the opening of the end of the last bead (on both sides). Do NOT cut off the tails.   

#7: Using the more of the same string you used for string the beads, make four tassels. I used a 4 foot/1.3m length of string for each tassel.   

 

#8: Attach the tassels to the necklace using the tail you left in step #6. Start with the bottom tassel and thread the tail back up through the stitches coming out the ends of the beads until you get to the location of the top tassel. After you've attached the top tassel, continue running the string up through the first small bead of the necklace, pull the tail out of the end of the first bead and clip off the excess.