New Quilling Technique Tutorial - Firmly Attaching 3D Flowers to Stems

This quilling tutorial fills an important gap in the  tutorials available on quilling 3D flowers. It is important to, not only make  the flowers, but also to be able to attach the flowers firmly to its stem and sepals. Many a quillist stops with making the sepals as they are not sure how to attach a firm stem. So here goes...

Please refer my tutorial here to make a stem using only 3mm strips. If you apply a light coat of glue with a brush and allow it to dry it will make very firm stems.

If you wish to have wire stems, take very thin wire and apply glue to a 3mm strip and wrap it around the wire while holding the strip at a 135 degree angle.

STEPS

Cut the stems to the required size.

Take a strip and glue the edge to top of the stem as shown and let it dry.

 Roll it into a peg by hand or using the quilling tool. Do not tighten too much nor make it too loose. If done right, you will end up with what looks like the above.

Hold the peg as shown above and roll it forward and backwards applying slight pressure inwards or slightly squashing it and it will push down like a cup. Roll gently and repeatedly till you get the required depth . Do not squash.

 Once done it will look like the above- your stem.

Now put some glue into the cup and around the edges. Also apply glue to the center of the flower and allow the glue to sit a tad till it gets sticky.

Now stick the stem onto the flowers and allow it to dry completely. If you have long stamens sit it on a hollow cylindrical object so your middle does not get damaged.

Once dry you can hold it up like shown above.

ATTACHING SEPALS

Take a 3mm strip or any other size strip you desire and fold it into 5 or 7 equal pieces as shown.

 Keep together and cut to shape as shown above.

Shape the sepals by rolling the end of your quilling tool over the sepals to curl it and  roll on the other side at the bottom to curl in reverse to form an asymmetrical S.

Now glue it as shown from the bottom of the cup and shape each sepal as desired.

That's it folks!! Hope You found this tutorial useful. If you did, would  love to have your comments as it means a lot to know what you think.

Cute clothes patterns crochet for girls

Sách móc ghép hoa rất hay

Beauty motif crochet pattern 
Crochet magazine

Quilled Painting Picture Art - Cherry Blossoms

A quilled painting is what I call this quilled picture inspired by  the famous Chinese cherry blossom paintings. I  created the design while quilling. The depth is created by layering and color, which  I tried out for the first time in Tree & Water.

As you can see the flowers are just tiny circles which are sparsely coiled. Hence, though all the rolling took some time I really enjoyed quilling this frame and liked the dainty appearance of the cherry blossoms.

In this project I paid  attention to the directionality of light when using color so it would look more like a painting especially for the trunk. Tutorial here.


Come , tell me what you think.



PS: Those of you who are inspired by my work and are using my techniques or copying my work , please  give a link to my blog instead of making vague, generalized references to me.

Quilled Flowers Nature Picture Art - Lilac & Butterflies

A quilled Flower Frame of Lilac and Butterflies inspired by the many quilled lilac  and vector pics I have seen. All the quilling I saw were of layered lilac flowers made from basic shapes, so I wanted to do it differently.

 Initially I thought of graphic quilling like the flowers in Blue Bird in a Bower, but it seemed  tedious  to do so many tiny flowers with strips, so I changed my mind and settled for using basic shapes. But, instead of making the flowers and layering, I glued the petals individually to form the bunch and I was amazed at the results. It looked layered!! Though this is the first time I have made flowers in 2d I am happy it looks like it has depth.


I have graphic quilled the leaves and have used  dark and light strips to get the tonal effects.

The butterflies are quilled with a combination of crimped and regular strips.

Love to have your feedback on this one too.

Graphic Quilled Nature Landscape Picture - Swan Lake

Today's post is a graphic quilled, painting like, nature landscape picture of a lake with swans floating among the reeds.

I quilled this soon after I quilled my first graphic quilled nature scene , Tree & Water, but never got down to blogging it till now!!

I call it graphic quilling because I have used folded paper strips glued directly to the backing. When I create scenes with basic shapes I call it quilled landscapes.

The basic concept for my graphic art nature scenes are to use the 3mm strip to imitate the elements of nature. In gluing the elements I try to follow the contours of the object, just like pencil shading, so that the light and shadow created by the arrangement of the strips gives depth to the image.

I have seen many landscape quilled pictures where the basic shapes are glued to fill the shape like paintings without shading  or like the way cartoons are colored. Even though these look good,  I feel that a more realistic appearance can be achieved with the same effort, if the shapes are glued to follow the contours of the solid object being depicted. Those of you wishing to perfect the art should try out both methods to see for yourself.

If you notice, I have changed the direction of the feathers in various parts of the bird to try and get a feeling of depth. Even when using strips changing the direction or shaping the strip to portray the shape will make your project look better.

I have also tried using perspective ( shape change depending on eye level and distant objects appearing smaller) and  color (darker to represent depth) in this project.

I would love to know what you think.

New Quilling Technique Tutorial - Looped Compound Leaf

This quilling tutorial is on how to make 3D compound leaves by hand. The leaf is versatile and can be shaped into any of the above leaves and requires no special tools.

I have used these leaves on  Orange Blossoms and Sweet William. I have used the pine leaf for christmas decor.

METHOD

The technique consists of making a tapering fan fold like the one in the pic and gluing it to form the leaf lets. I am going to use a toothpick to standardize the size of each leaf let.
 

Take a toothpick and break it at about 3mm longer than the length of the leaf let you require. (I have used the notched side of the toothpick for measure). Make a notch at about 3mm from one end. We will call this the guide.

Take a green strip and measure from the longer end of the guide up to the 3mm notch and fold.down, then measure the full length of the guide and fold up. Glue the folded end to make a loop. ( please note that you should measure the short side first and then the long side. I have made a mistake in the pic). When folding, do not flatten the fold if you want to have rounded leaflets.

The loop you made will be glued at the 3mm mark and the up fold  you made in the previous step will be at the end of the guide.(the fold is not shown in pic)

Now keep the 3mm notch at the fold below the loop, as shown above, and make a down fold at the end of the guide as shown above. Measuring and scoring a mark with your finger nail and then folding is the easiest way.

Now keep the end of the guide at the fold , as shown above, and make an up fold at the end of the guide as shown above.Repeat these two steps till you reach the end of the strip and you will end up with a tapering fan .

Now use the folded strip for measure and fold as many strips as you require. 2 folded strips will be required for  each compound leaf.

Take a folded strip and apply a tad of glue to the end of each long fold as shown above and glue it to a new strip as shown. The strip will make the center vein.

Once glued it will look like the above which I have used as a leaf in Sweet William.

Now take another folded strip and glue it to the other side of the same strip as shown above. Make sure you glue it to match the other side so the leaves are glued at the same point on either side of the vein strip.

When gluing the second side hold each glued point as shown above to ensure it is stuck properly.

If you want the leaf let tips to be rounded, rub a rounded surface against the inside of each tip . Turn the blunt tool in a clockwise direction while rubbing.

If you want the above appearance, pinch each tip and push it down slightly while holding each leaf let at the place where you glued it to the vein with your other hand.

If you want the leaf like a palm, pinch the leaflets together and lightly glue each leaf let shut.

Good Luck!! Hope you find this compound leaf useful.