How to Make Chain Tassels (Tutorial)
by Rena Klingenberg. © 2003-Present Rena Klingenberg. All Rights Reserved
Here’s how to make chain tassels for pendants, earrings, or any other tasseled jewelry purpose.
In this chain tassel tutorial, we’ll make a long pendant – and then learn how to scale the project down to make earrings.
This project brings together three of the most popular jewelry making components – wire, beads, and chain!
Supplies:
My finished chain tassel pendant here is 80mm (3.15″). If you want it longer or shorter, you can use a longer or shorter bead than mine, and / or cut your pieces of chain fringe a longer or shorter length than mine.
- A focal bead. This is a great place to use one of your most fabulous focals!
I’m using a colorful square paua shell bead measuring 13mm x 13mm (0.5″ x 0.5″).
However, you can use a much larger bead than that if you like! - 20 gauge soft round wire – 152mm (6″) long, plus the length of your focal bead.
Example: if your bead is 13mm (0.5″) long, then add 152mm (6″) to that, for a total wire length of 165mm (6.5″).
I’m using 20 gauge Artistic Wire, in Gun Metal color. - Chain – for my chain tassel pendant here, I used 457mm (18″) of a curb chain with links measuring 4mm x 5mm.
Whatever chain you use for your tassel, I think it’s best if it has fluid movement. - Jump ring – to attach to the top of your finished tassel pendant.
- Sharpie marker – for marking your wire and your pliers.
- Wire cutter – for cutting your wire and your chain (if your chain has soldered links).
- Round nose pliers.
- Flat nose pliers.
- Chain nose pliers.
How to Make Chain Tassels
We’ll start by using a Sharpie marker to make two marks on one jaw of your round nose pliers:
Cut your wire to the length specified in the Supplies section above:
Use your Sharpie marker to make a mark 51mm (2″) from one end of your wire:
Now we’ll make a wire wrapped loop at the end of the wire where you just made the Sharpie mark.
If you’re new to making a wrapped wire loop, see my easy Make a Wrapped Wire Loop Video Tutorial.
Use your round nose pliers to grasp your wire, so that the wire’s Sharpie mark is resting against the pliers’ mark that’s closest to the tips of the pliers:
With the fingers of your other hand, bend the short wire end upward, not quite at a 90-degree angle:
Now your wire should look like this:
Still grasping the bend you just made in the wire, wrap the shorter wire end around the Sharpie mark that’s at the tip of your pliers:
Your wire should look like this:
Now we’ll wrap the shorter wire end around the longer wire end, starting just below the loop, making nice tight wraps moving away from the loop.
TIP: You’ll get the best wrapping result by pulling on the shorter wire, and winding it firmly around the longer wire as you wrap.
Use your flat nose pliers to grasp the wire loop:
. . . and start wrapping the shorter wire around the stem:
Make about three wraps, so this end of your wire looks like this:
Now we’ll trim off the excess tail on the short end of the wire.
Place the flat side of your wire cutter against the wire wraps you just made, and snip off the short wire end:
Use the tips of your chain nose pliers to squash down the remaining wire end so that it can’t poke or scratch anyone.
Now the top of your wire should have a wire wrapped loop.
Your focal bead is ready to be strung onto the other end of the wire:
String the bead onto the wire, sliding the bead all the way up so it presses against the wire wraps you made:
Now we’ll make a wire loop below the bead. This loop will hold all the chains for your tassel.
We’ll make this wire loop a bit larger than the first one.
So we’ll use the second mark on the round nose pliers – the mark that’s closer to the hinges of the pliers.
With the bead pressed against your wire wraps, use your round nose pliers to grasp your wire just below the bead.
Your wire should be resting on the second mark on your pliers jaw:
With the fingers of your other hand, bend the long wire stem upward, not quite at a 90-degree angle:
Your wire should look like this:
Grasping your wire just below the bend you just made in the wire, wrap the long wire around the second Sharpie mark that’s closer to the hinges of your pliers, making a loop:
Your wire should like this:
Now we’ll leave the wire and bead for a minute, so we can get the chains ready.
Use your wire cutter to cut lengths of chain for the fringe of your tassel:
I’m cutting 9 pieces of chain, each 51mm (2″) long:
Start stringing the chain pieces onto the wire, with the top link of each chain being strung onto the wire:
. . . and going around until the chain piece is inside the open wire loop:
Add the next chain piece:
. . . and keep going until you have all nine chain pieces inside the wire loop:
When all the chain pieces are inside the loop, it’s time to close the loop by wrapping the long wire upward toward the bottom of the bead.
Basically, we’re going to make a second wire wrapped loop.
Use the tips of your chain nose pliers to grasp the top of the wire loop that contains the chains:
. . . and start wrapping the long wire around the wire stem that leads up to the bottom of the bead:
. . . until you’ve reached the bottom of the bead:
Now we’ll trim off the excess wire tail, placing the flat side of your wire cutter against the wire wraps you just made, and snipping off the wire end:
Use the tips of your chain nose pliers to squash down the remaining wire end so that it can’t poke or scratch anyone.
Your finished chain tassel pendant should look something like this:
To wear your pendant as a chain tassel necklace, attach a jump ring to the top loop of the tassel, and thread a chain or cord through the jump ring:
How to Make Chain Tassel Earrings:
For making chain tassel earrings, you’ll probably want the tassels to be smaller and lighter than the pendant size one we made above.
However, you’ll still use the same procedures – but with smaller components.
Of course, you can make your earring tassels any size you like.
To make them smaller and lighter-weight for these earrings, everything is scaled down from the chain tassel pendant above.
Here are ways to make chain tassels smaller and lighter for earrings.
Follow the main chain tassel tutorial above, but make these changes in your materials:
- I’m aiming for a finished tassel length of 40mm for each of these smaller earring chain tassels. (The large tassel pendant that we made above measures 80mm (3.15″) in length.)
- Instead of a large focal bead, each of these example tassels use a seed bead.
- The wire is 22 gauge soft round, approximately 101mm (4″) long, and the wire loops are smaller.
- The chain has links that are only 1mm x 1.5mm size.
- There are just 6 pieces of chain in each of these earring tassels, and each piece of chain measures only 25mm (1″) long.
- Assemble your chain tassels, following the instructions above for the pendant.
- Add an earwire to the top loop of each finished earring chain tassel.
