Quilled gratitude card

         It has been a very good year for me in my Quilling journey , a lot of firsts and many challenging projects. One of the most precious gifts that Quilling has given me is the people who have come into my life , especially my customers. A week ago , I had a wonderful visitor, she wanted a card for her spiritual Guru, Mahatria Ra. Although she spoke over the phone she wanted to see me in person to tell me about herself and the gratitude she felt for her Guru. She wanted a card with the three dots which are symbols for infinitheism , she wanted the card to be predominately blue, She also wanted me to add a Sun and the word  GRATITUDE on it. I chose a metallic white background so that the blue shows bold , The words Gratitude and the Sun is made using 5mm Paper strips for the rest of the card I used 3mm paper strips , This card is truly inspired by my customer Shashi . She will write her message and give the card to her Guru in person as she is now in a week long program of meditation and silence.      
    As my blog turns five today I would like to thank all the lovely bloggers and readers who have encouraged me all these years. A special thanks to people who take time to appreciate my work through messages and mails. I am also grateful to all my customers for each of them have brought an unique experience to me and some of them are now my dear friends.

Thanks for stopping by, have a creative day.

Quilled Blue bird

     A week ago I received a request to make a card for someone who is receiving an award for excellence in his chosen field. My first thought was to quill a bird flying high and started my search on Google images, While searching I found a blue bird perched on a branch looking up and I felt it would fit nicely in a card .
     I used an ordinary comb to make the underside of the bird. Rest of the bird is made using basic shapes all with 3mm Quilling paper.
     Soon  I received a call asking me to add a rainbow in the card if I could because of the wordings in the sentiment inside. I found this free rainbow image on the internet which I printed out and used as the background. While I think a white background would have made the bird look more brighter , the colourful background does give the card a special look.

Thanks for stopping by , Have a creative day.

Quilled jewellery

       It has been so long since I last blogged and I though I should share some of the quilled jewellery that I have been making . I made this one on request from a friend to match her beautiful saree. The quilled elements are all tight coils, I rolled the two colour strips separately to find the exact length of each required to make the same sized tight coils and then cut a whole bunch of them to that length and rolled them. I also made matching earrings for this pendant. The beads are also paper , painted with acrylic gold colour.

      This purple set is one of my very favourite , it turned out exactly as I had imagined  The one thing I hate about making jewellery is the sealing and varnishing part. I am always a bit nervous when I come to that part after making a beautiful piece.It is difficult to see  the beauty of rolled paper turn to something stiff and plastic ,  sometimes the colours too change drastically . I try making tight coils for most parts so that it is easy to seal and varnish.

    Thanks for stopping by have a great day.

Quilled teddy bear card.

           Recently a mother of a young girl wrote to me for a card. She has planned to gift her daughter with a  starter quilling kit for her eleventh birthday and she wished to gift her a card from me as well for inspiration. I loved the thought behind it and was in turn inspired to do something special.  I decided to make this fringed teddy bear which at first created by Manuela Koosch ( I can only dream of making one like hers) was then tried by many talented quillers and then I have seen Neli use them in her cards. I fringed 5mm quilling paper of two shades of pink to make this teddy bear. It is not three dimensional ,since I was going to use it on a card I thought it unnecessary. I found out fringing 5 mm paper actually turns out better than wider strips. I have never thought much of my fringing capabilities and have avoided fringing as much as I can,but this experiment has changed that , I am looking forward to perfecting my fringing. I spent an entire evening making this little teddy bear. I had to rush making the card itself before I could pack and send so that it reaches on time.

Thanks for stopping by,

Have a great day.

Quilled lion head

    I am ever thankful to people for making requests that make me quill something new. This request came from a friend's uncle whose zodiac is Leo or Simha rasi in Tamil. He wanted a lion head along with his name. I found an image from clipart which was just a line drawing in black and white. I got the impression  of just the outline  on paper and quilled over it. I struggled with choice of colours and the techniques to use to fill different parts. I spent an entire evening doing the eyes.
   I was really happy when my son Akhil said he really liked it and it looks like Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia. I used 5mm paper strips for the whole lion face , 3mm brown strips for the eyes alone.

    I took this picture before quilling the name which was really lucky, for the pictures with the name got accidently deleted. Hope I can take a picture again when it comes back from the framers.

   Thanks for stopping by , Have a great day.

Quilled Banyan tree For St Kevin's School

        Class of 1984 from St Kevin's school are having a reunion today , I was requested to make a gift for their beloved school. The banyan tree was chosen as it fitted with their idea of expressing what each letter of the school stood for them.
        I had secretly wished I will not have to repeat quilling a banyan tree as my first tree turned out perfect and I was afraid my next attempts might fall short. This tree is at least three times as big as my earlier tree and in one place it has three layers of beehives. I used four colours of hand cut heavier paper for the trunk , I also cut them in slightly different widths to give the trunk a more natural texture.
       The letters were the most challenging , I printed them out and got the impression of the letters on the paper and quilled over them. The back ground is white metallic paper, I did not measure the exact size of the work, it is considerably more than A4 size.
     
Thanks for stopping by, have a great day.
     
    

Twenty fifth wedding anniversary quilled card.

         This will be one of my most favourite cards, for it turned out far better than I imagined. When  I was asked to make a card for a twenty fifth wedding anniversary, I wanted to make something elegant with lots of white and the number 25.I made two blue butterflies with the idea that they would stand out against the white background . As I progressed I felt the need for more colours and I used some strips that I have been hoarding for a long time, two tone purple and two tone orange strips to make the flowers.
    The background paper is metallic white, I embossed the sides first and then I embossed another paper and cut out the heart shape.  The numbers were the most challenging since it had to be done on embossed paper .Surprisingly it turned out perfect !!I made them in bits using a printed image as reference and then glued them on to the paper, I used two tone blue 3mm paper to quill them. The butterflies are simple and small made using 3mm light and dark blue paper strips.

           Thanks for stopping by, have a creative day.

Quilled girl

   This project started as a card request. I was asked to make a card for a nature lover ,with a name and some butterflies, slowly additions were made and subsequently the size also increased until it reached an A3 size frame work. The girl with a peacock feather gown was to be the focus of this work,  I tried layering the feathers and then tried making a peacock tail like design , which  unfortunately left large gaps . Later I made the peacock eye shapes and filled the gaps with beehive technique. I made tiny flowers for her hair and some for her to hold in her arms.

    Quilling a scarlet Macaw was in my to do list and so took this opportunity to make one. I found an image of this Macaw in flight and used it.I used 3mm strips to make this one. Most of the feathers are made using wheat ear technique.

   I loved how this butterfly turned out I used 3mm dark centre quilling paper , purple colour to make this one.

    This is my biggest project so far and many thanks to my customer who gave me precise instructions on colours and placements and for the beautiful font for the name. It was almost ten days of hard work but the warm appreciation from the recipient made it all worth it. Needless to say it looks many times better in person .

Thanks for stopping by , Have a wonderful day.

American flag heart with quilled roses

     Thanks to Mihira, I got to make something I would never have dreamt of . Mihira loves my butterflies and has bought several butterflies from me . She sent me an image of an American flag  in the shape of a heart and asked me if I could quill it and if possible with roses. She also wanted a couple of Sulphur butterflies on or around it. This is one of those projects on which I work with lot of doubts in the beginning, and as I progress I become impatient to finish and see how it turns out.
     I made a lot of roses in red and white , I lined up about 13 roses and measured the length and then cut the heart shape to that length. I marked the area for the stars and since I wanted to define the stripes I first cut red colour strips and stuck them leaving the same amount of space for the white roses. I then stuck the red roses over the red strips and white over the white. I filled the blue parts with beehives and I  added some punched white stars over the beehives. The addition of the stars added so much beauty to the piece.
    I found a small image of a Sulphur butterfly and used it to quill the little butterflies. I hand cut yellow colour 80 gsm paper into 2mm strips for the butterflies.The roses were hand folded , Claire has an excellent tutorial  . The dimensions of the heart is about 22X21cms.

    Thanks for stopping by , Have a great day.

Quilled poppies

       I have been wishing to quill poppies for a long time. When I started with this card I first tried out Inna's tutorial . I am not so good at using pins for husking and I still need lot of practice. The flower turned out well but too big to use in a card.

    Then I went back to making the petals with one of my favourite techniques - the eccentric circle. I love how the flowers turned out  .I  referred many images and cliparts before arranging the flowers , leaves and buds. For the leaves and stems I used 5mm quilling paper . The flowers are made using 3mm quilling paper. I stuck three quilling paper along their lengths to make the stems.

    I received a request for a card with something new and I thought I should try out the poppies which for a long time looked like a lot of work. I am thankful to my sweet customer who was very patient even when I took  many days to finish her order. It is so difficult to work with Chennai temperature rising to intolerable heights and it looks like a busy month to me with so many weddings.

    Thanks for stopping by, Have a creative day.

Quilled butterflies.

                          

    I recently received a request for two butterflies a Monarch and a Blue Morpho.  This is my first attempt at quilling a Blue Morpho butterfly.  I hope I  have done justice translating the image into quilling. The most difficult part was finding the right blue shade quilling strips. After many trials with different shades of blue I settled for this one. The strips had a beautiful sheen when rolled which I could not capture with my camera.

    I made another Monarch ,a detailed one . It took me many hours to make all the tiny tight coils . I made the whole butterfly with a very fine needle tool. Looks like my page is filled with butterflies and peacocks.


Thanks for stopping by , Have  a great day.

Blue beehive flowers for mother's day

       I made this card for mother's day and gifted it to my most hard working student in my Summer class to give it to her mother. It is such a joy when all the colours you use work well together.
       A very happy mother's day to all the wonderful mothers out there.

Quilled Peacock

      I made another peacock for another request . I used the same image as my earlier peacock( I was asked to make a similar one). After I  finished the peacock I drew the tree around it and filled it with beehive quilling technique using two shades of brown. The peacock is made using 5 mm quililng strips, whereas the tree and flowers are made using 3mm quilling strips. This did not take as much time as my earlier one ,I had all the colours ready and I also remembered the lengths and the size of the coils I had used. Although I tried the exact same peacock , the arrangement of the feathers turned out different making this also as unique as all my other quilled versions.
     It so happened I had to photograph on the very rare summer morning in Chennai when the Sun would n't come out. I had to rush to the framers and hence the dull picture.      
     I am also in the middle of my Summer English class with another batch of sweet and creative kids.

    Thanks for stopping by , have a lovely day.

Quilled Monarch

     This is my most favourite quilled Monarch that I have made so far , I was able to get the exact shape of the wings.Although I use the same image , my quilled versions don't turn out the same.
      I made this on request from my brother for his client. The entire butterfly is made using 5mm paper strips.

   Thanks for stopping by , Have a great day.

Quilled peacock

        For me the most difficult part with a big project is getting  it started, especially when  I am given as much time as I want  . I was asked to make a quilled peacock for a children kindergarten school almost a month ago. I took a free digital image of a peacock as a model for this quilled peacock . I made the feathers same as I did while making my earlier peacock ,except the tail in my earlier version was double layered. Although it took me many hours to make feathers for the tail and then arranging them, I am happy with the final look.
       The peacock is made using 5mm store bought strips , the flowers are made using 3mm pre cut strips. The finished work is A4 size.

Thanks for stopping by , Have a creative day.

Book review - Pretty Quilled Cards by Cecelia Louie

     

               I have known and admired Ceclia's work for several years now , she brings to quilling a fresh style with her use of paper strips which is both expressive and delightful . When asked to review her new book I was sure I was only dreaming. 

             It was not easy to choose a favourite as I liked them all. Each of the 25 projects  in the book is designed to include at least one new idea. But I was most delighted with the 'Jam jar Thank you card' for I did not understand at first glance and had to read through the whole description to find what a clever idea she has had for this card.

          About an year ago Cecelia gave me her 'Heart full of flowers' tutorial because I liked it so much . I have tried it here . I already knew from that tutorial how detailed her instructions are and I found the same in the book too. While making the valentine I did not follow her measurements I just followed her flower tutorial and her very useful tips on gluing . But this time I wanted to try a project exactly as she has given in her book . I measured all the strips with the templates given, folded and cut where indicated, and made this card. I was amazed at how perfect the measurements were and how easy it was to make these pretty vases just following her steps. Nothing is left to chance , She has included tips for making the vase shapes ,flowers and leaves with pictures and diagrams , which even includes how to stick the strip for the table straight. 

          Look how pretty this card looks sitting on my table. I tried this project because the vases looked tempting, There are so many such yummy projects in the book which I can't wait to try.Cecelia's ideas and style are unique and the hard work she has put to get all the measurements right and give instructions with so much clarity is commendable. I would recommend beginners to follow all her instructions to gain confidence as it is not always easy to work with single strips . This book is a must for quillers who aspire to learn on edge quilling or quilled typography. She teaches how to soften and shape strips throughout the book.

            Thank you Cecilia for your really great book. 

            Thanks for stopping by , have a great day.

Quilled flowers using multi strips loops

      These flowers were made using multiple strips looping technique. You can find the tutorial for this here. I used four strips of paper together to make the loops of the petal.  The paper strips I used were heavier than the usual quilling paper and using four strips at a time was a bit difficult. But the flowers turned out very pretty . I used alternate side looping method as I used just one colour for looping .The picture was taken in Sunlight.

Thanks for stopping by, Have a great day.

Purple quilled flowers

     A few days ago , I received a request to make a card to be gifted to non other than the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J . Jayalalitha for her birthday . which is today. The request came from the management of a school.  They had no idea about quilling or quilled cards. They were looking for someone who could make them a handmade card  . Their search led to our library and to me .After seeing some of my cards and my blog  they asked me to make a completely quilled card with flowers and leaves. The only problem was I had less than two days in which to finish with the card size being a little less than A4.I wanted the card to look more green , which is the Chief Minister's favourite colour but instead it turned out more purple and adding more leaves only make the card look too busy.
    I tried some new colour combinations for this card  I made all the flowers using a needle tool, using  three different shades of purple. The greens and purples are made using 5mm strips and the little blue flowers were made using 3mm paper strips.

Thanks for stopping by , Have a great day.
     

Quilled Valentine with Royal flowers.

    A few weeks ago I received a mail from a very sweet person asking me to make a valentine's day card. She let me choose the colours and layout . Her only request was that I use Royal quilled flowers in them.  Thanks to her I made these gorgeous flowers . I used  dark centred pink-purple paper strips and white strips . I embossed a sheet of metallic white paper and cut out the heart shape. Although most people use a slotted toll to make royal quilled flowers , I prefer using a needle. I loved using these dark centred paper strips , the tight coils and the multi strip scrolls were all made from the same pack. The thick crimped white paper strips are hand cut.

   Thanks for stopping by , Have a great day.

By Hand, From The Heart- One Show, Many Stories

                                                                      Quilled Lilac

     By Hand, From The Heart , is a market place for artisans, designers and entrepreneurs to showcase their handmade, handcrafted, handwoven and homemade products. The market place is held periodically in Chennai to celebrate and to promote all things hand made.
     I could only dream of taking part in such huge events . Thanks to Deepa Sekar Co founder at By Hand, From The Heart, who convinced me to take part in the event this month in a very small way , I have been working  for the past few weeks making cards which will be on display at the event and will also be available for sale. I have posted a few of my cards on my page . If you are in Chennai on the 14th and 15th of this month don't forget to drop in at By Hand , From The Heart market place . Here is the event page, you will find such wonderfully talented people and their beautiful work featured on the page, it would be such a treat to see them all in person.

                                                                    QUILLED KITE

 Friday & Saturday. 14th & 15th February 2014 from 10 A.M to 8 P.M
At, Hanu Reddy Residences, 41/19, Poes Garden,
Teynampet, Chennai - 600086   


Thanks for stopping by , Have a creative day.

Quilled valentine.

      I quilled this for a valentine theme scrap book cover page. I was asked to use red and black combination, something I have not tried so far. I found three different shades of red strips with me and used them on a hand made paper background. I embossed a red colour card stock first and hand cut the heart shapes. I used 120gsm and 160 gsm hand cut black colour strips.

      If you are following my facebook page you might have have seen this card I made a while ago. I have embossed the background here as well . Must admit that although I like the texture, it is difficult to stick strips down on an embossed paper .

Thanks for stopping by , Have a great day.

Pongal Wishes

         A very happy Pongal to everyone. Today on Surya Pongal , salutations are given to the Sun.
Pongal is the most important festival for Tamilians around the world. It is a harvest and thanksgiving festival. The first day is Surya Pongal , The second day is Mattu Pongal, on this day the Oxen is decorated and fed a sweet dish called Pongal. This is to thank them for their hard work along with the farmers in bringing about a good harvest. On the third day(kannu Pongal) , relatives and friends are visited and thanked for their support.
      Thanks for stopping by , Have a great day.    

     

Quilled New year 2014

     Wishing everyone a very happy ,prosperous and creative 
                                        New  Year.