Combination quilled flowers

I used a number of flowers that i have been trying out on this card/ The fringed cream flower is just a simple rolled fringed strip. The large flower had a rolled 1/2 strip 3mm and a rolled 1/2 strip 5mm, fringed. A full fringed and rounded tipped strip was added in cram followed by a wider full rounded tipped fringe in tan. The buff coloured flower was 3 circles. I folded each circle into quarters and then cut 3 petals into it. The plain cream flower was just one fringed rounded tipped flower with a half length roll in the centre.

cream chrysanthemums

This time I used matt paper and the photography worked better. I used a centre wheel this time which opens the flower out a little. Both ways, with and without the centre wheel have resulted in nice flowers. I've just used a few common fillers for the rest. the cream and brown flower uses 2 different widths if strip cut down an A4 sized piece of paper and fringed with a square tip. I like the effect of the strip of coloured corrugated cardboard. My only problem is that it is hard to find something that isn't a violent colour!

Purple Chrysanthemums

I've been playing around with quilling and fringing. The purple crysanthemums were the result and I'm quite pleased with how they came out. The paper I used was shiny scrapbooking paper, 12 x 12 inches. I used one grauated slice that was 0.5cm at one end and 1cm at the other. I then used a 1.5cm strip. Both strips were fringed with the tips being cut to a point.

The strip was rolled with the purple side innermost. I ran a thin bead of glue along the bottom edge to stop it from sliding while I rolled and then left it to dry. Next I folded down the petals on the wider strip and curled each one under by running the petal over the quilling tool. The wedge shaped slice I simply fluffed up.

The shininess of the paper has made it difficult for an amateur like me to photograph but I fiddled around with enhancing the photo to try and show how the centre is spiky but the outer petals more smooth and rounded.It looks much better in real life than in the photo though.  There is no centre wheel on this which helps the spiky centre to fluff up.

Navy and white quilling

I used a daisy cutter for the white petals which were made from white parchment paper so they are slightly translucent. There are two layers of each of 3 sizes. I used a fringed rolled centre with  a small 3mm roll (1/4 length) - then a 5mm fringed blue roll (1/2 length) and a full length hand fringed pink roll. Again I made a hole in the centre and snipped small slits out from the hole, then pushed the centre through the hole and glued into place.

Pink and grey quilling

I was playing around with making flowers and filler leaves on this card. This flower was made by fringing the paper so that the ends are pointed rather than squared. I made the petals very narrow on this one. The pink layer had two strips the same width plus one slightly wider. Next time I think I'd use two wider strips. the inner cream colour used two strips the same size and the centre was a half length roll and a very narrow pointed fringe strip about 15cm long. I'm going to have a go at using strips that are narrower at one end and see what difference that makes.

More quilling for Christmas

 

Quilling

I've finally got back to my quilling after a year long hiatus for moving house and I've made some inroads into making my Christmas cards. I'm finally getting the scrolls right. I just need to figure out where to glue on the pine sprigs!

Silver and Blue Quilled Card

Blue 2mm strips were used to make the scrolls and  leaf fronds. The large fringed flower has a smaller punched flower glued to the centre. The cream flowers are made from 4 scrunched scalloped circles pinned together with a small brad. The remaining flowers were made from six 2mm wide loose leaves with a fringed flower in the centre. The quilling is mounted on white card and matted on a light blue linen backing card, also mounted onto a darker grey-blue linen base card.

Comb Quilling

More quilling. This design was experimental (mind you, aren’t most???). I made the large flower some weeks ago using Meg’s  comb quilling method, then made the scrolls and used up left over strips to fill in the gaps. The corner strips are gold adhesive sticker strips that you can buy in sheets. I’m still managing to get glue everywhere and can’t seem to get neat ends to my scrolls – hence the tightly wound two coloured circles over one end and the blue punched flower over the other. Useful ways to hide a multitude of sins!

More Quilled Chrysanthemums

Larger quilled chrysanthemums. These have layers of stamens between the layers of tear drop petals. It’s very fiddly but looks nice when finished, reminding me of Jacobean crewel embroidery designs.
Might explore this idea further!

Quilled Chrysanthemums

I saw these mini chrysanthemums made from curved quilled tear drops and decided to give it a go. I also wanted to try attaching single stem scrolls. I used slightly thicker paper – about 100gsm and cut the strips on the spaghetti cutter of my pasta machine, making the strips about 1.5-2mm wide. This width is perfect for making stems and single scrolls as it stands up well.

Double Fringed Flower

This quilled card I made to display a double quilled flower. I followed Pritesh Dagur’s instructions but the flower didn’t turn out quite how I expected. My paper was very crisp making the fold very stiff and the petals didn’t open the same way as they do in Pritesh’s video. I opened out each of my petals individually and gave it more of a scruffy spikey look, teamed it up with some leaf scrolls and scrolls made from 1.5mm strips I cut using the spaghetti cutter on my pasta machine. I have just bought a 3mm trenette cutter attachment for a pasta machine. Although it is the same make as my pasta machine, mine is a much older model and doesn’t take attachments. However, the winder fits the trenette attachment and it is easy to balance the attachment on the side of the table and cut the paper.

Purple Quilled Card

Another go at quilling – this time a DL sized card.  I was using up my 2mm strips on this one and practicing making scrolls.

Quilling 1

On a recent short break, I went to a beginners quilling class with a friend. I had learned the basics of quilling some 20 years or so ago but just went along to keep her company. However, it rekindled my interest in quilling and with the internet having literally exploded with craft sites, I discovered that quilling has come a long way in those intervening years. Of course I had to have another go at it and this is my first attempt.

The design is a bit disjointed, but it was literally thrown together using all the bits and pieces I’d been trying out. Me being me, I couldn’t find the colours I wanted in quilling paper at my local stores and not being one with much patience with waiting, I didn’t want to order on line. So I tried cutting my own strips. Yes you can cut them using a guillotine or as I tried, on my cutterpillar. They cut very nicely BUT you try cutting 3mm strips absolutely accurately every time! I ended up with a whole load of shredded paper that wasn’t all exactly the same width. Yes fractions of a mm do notice! So then I thought I might try a paper shredder but that cuts 6mm wide strips. A search of the internet shows people using hand powered shredders that cut to 3mm. Of course the only one I could source was from Hong Kong..a 6 week wait – sheer agony for someone like me. It has been ordered, but that still left me in a hurry to play with my quilling tool and new found eagerness. I found a quilling die at my local store – cuts the strips too short and 4mm wide (too wide in my opinion) and takes forever to cut enough strips to work with. Final solution: my hand powered pasta machine! The spaghetti setting cuts the strips just a tad under 2mm wide which is really a bit thin and hard to work with, but it will do until the hand shredder arrives. (Note: the shredder arrived and although it cuts reasonably well, the edges of the strips are a bit ragged. I've since bought a linguini attachment for a pasta machine that cuts the strips much more neatly).

This card was made using strips cut on the pasta machine and a little frustration as I ruined a few bits due to the delicate nature of such narrow strips. What didn’t help was the sturdy parchment, which turned out to be sturdy as it is 2 pieces glued together and came apart at times, especially on the curves. It also springs open badly, making it hard to push inside rolled petals. I won’t be using that paper again any time soon for quilling!
The one thing I do like about cutting on the pasta machine is that you can make a mountain of strips (over 100) from one sheet of A4 paper. I’ve barely made a dent in the paper I cut for this project and I only cut one sheet of each.

For those wanting to know details, the card is a standard 5×7 card. The bottom layer is gold cardstock – a pre-folded purchased card. On this I mounted a matting layer of the parchment and then an off white pearlised embossed board which I distressed and edged with with dark gold ink. The bits and pieces were made from ideas I found on the net, and the fringed flowers from memory plus trial and error. There is a tutorial somewhere on the net for the large flower but I found the 2mm wide strips to delicate to make on a comb so I did it by hand, eyeballing the sizes. I actually made the insides and wrapped them after, but it is very hard to get even sized petals this way. Making the wrapping first (as the tutorials recommend) and squeezing the contents in afterwards makes even sized flowers, but is a lot more fiddly, especially with 2mm wide strips.

Having grasped the basics, it is now time to master neatness….something I’m definitely not good at, so that is going to be a challenge…..