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.
     
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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.