Quilling Book Review

Today I’d like to share my opinion on ‘The Art of Paper Quilling’ book by Claire Sun-ok Choi.

The book has good information about the history of the art, different paper types, list of tools and materials, basic shapes and several tips and techniques. The photographs and the written detailed description of the shapes are brilliantly done.  The book has some beautiful designs and many styles of shaping flowers that are unique.  Some leaf arrangements are very interestingly done.

As I have been quilling for over 4 years now, I found this book to be good for a beginner. It has simple and a few advanced projects, which can be great gifts for friends and family.  Each project is explained in detail with information from the color, length of strips, shapes required, and assembly.  

The one thing that I was confused about in the book was the lengths of the quilling strips mentioned. They don’t seem to match up with the actual size templates given at the end of the book. In some projects, shorter length strips are mentioned, but a look at the picture shows it is made from a longer length of strip.

The gallery of Claire’s work at the end of the book is just mind-blowing, especially the butterflies. I was hoping that the book would have some tips for making those too, but I was disappointed.

To sum up, I personally would have not bought the book if I could browse it in the library/book store. At the same time it is a worth read for beginners,especially at a reasonable price. 

-Smriti.

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Easter Eggs

I have been seeing a lot of projects on the internet for Easter and I was really excited to do something myself.  I had many options and finally decided to decorate Easter eggs.

I used chicken eggs for this project and here’s how I went about decorating them.

I made holes on either side of the egg and blew the egg yolk and egg white out. Rinsed it and let it dry for a few hours.

I used strips of colored tissue paper and stuck them on the egg with a mixture of glue and water. While doing that, I covered the work area with a plastic bag to avoid the paper from sticking to the surface.  After 3-4 layers of tissue paper the decoupage eggs were ready.

Next thing on my list was a miniature egg diorama. To make this I carved out an oval shaped hole in the empty egg shell. The border was made by tight quilled coils. I glued the inside of the egg and stuffed it with some scrap paper. Then made a little garden scene with green tissue paper, rabbit cut outs and some flowers.

The last and my favorite was the quilled egg.  Since I didn’t want to stick the quilled shapes directly onto the egg, I created a paper mesh around the egg using 3mm strips.  I made two such meshes, one for the top half and one for the bottom.

All the quilled shapes were glued either to the sides of each other or the mesh wherever possible. The mesh was always over the egg while making the design. This helped me to take the egg out in the end.

This was a very different and challenging project as compared to my previous works. I learnt a lot and had a great time exploring.  And if you are wondering what happened to all the egg yolk and egg whites – scrambled eggs it was! :) 

-Smriti. 

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Quilling Therapy

I was (still am and always will be) fascinated with paper. 4 years ago when I discovered a quilling kit in a craft store, I knew I had to buy it!! It sat in my studio for about 2-3 months before I opened it and experimented. It was magical and then there was no stopping.

Quilling (also known as paper filigree) is therapeutic, addictive, fun and inexpensive. It’s an art form that uses narrow strips of paper that are coiled and then pinched into different shapes. Quilling can be very versatile and one can create unique gifts like cards, wall art, photo frames, trinkets, jewelry. It isn't difficult, just needs a lot of patience because you are dealing with tiny paper coils and trying to shape them. With practice you will get it just right. So let’s practice! J

This is where you will get some basic instructions, tools, supplies, techniques to begin. Google ‘quilling’ and you will see some really inspirational quillers who stimulate me.

Before working with the paper strips that came with the kit, I thought it would be more appropriate to practice with plain paper. So I took A4 size papers, cut them into strips (2mm or 3mm width each) coiled and shaped them. There are different ways of gluing the strips - a lot of quillers use a fine tip glue applicator, but I take out some glue on a plastic sheet and use a toothpick for application. A MUST have equipment while quilling for me is a tweezer.

The picture below was a card for my Mom's birthday. Since it was one of the first few cards I made, I played with a few shapes (basic)  which included circle, tear drop, marquise, triangle and some scrolls. 

-Smriti.

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Love is in the air

I am not such a fan of Valentine’s day..but because I see so much ‘love’ around me I thought of making something for my hubby dear!

Since I am such a hoarder when it comes to craft supplies, I have a moderate collection of designer paper punches. So I decided to put those in use. 

Here's what I did : 

• Sketched a bare tree
• Punched out a bunch of hearts
• Stuck them randomly on the tree
• Got Shamoni to help me with the tag line
• Voila ! V-day card done! 

My V-day obsession didn't stop at the card, I got myself to do some more work. I got my box of quilling strips and ended up making this 3d cake ! 

This was my first time at 3d quilling. I used the curling coach to make the cake. It helped me a lot, since I was able to manage working with a lot of strips together. The strips I used for the cake were dark yellow and red color which were 3mm wide and 17 inches long. The number of stripes I glued for each layer, starting from the bottom are as follows : 

• 12
• 9 
• 6 
• 3

I worked on each color separately, then glued them all together to make a 4- tier cake! It didn't really look like a cake, especially not a Valentine's day type of cake! So I decided ..what better to add than little hearts all over! :-) I took dark magenta color strip, cut them to get 1.5mm width and made inward facing V scrolls ( basically heart shaped ).  I look forward to making more 3d quilling projects and I will post them soon! 

-Smriti

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