A visit to nearby
Longwood Gardens inspired this card...
so many wonderful flowers on display, including some beauties that gave the illusion of growing upside down. I came home wanting to duplicate them in paper.
The flower, quilled with
Paplin graduated color strips, is mounted on a gilded frame sticker from Martha Stewart's line at my local
Michaels store. Love these! The package comes with two sheets of several frames each, in a variety of beautiful shapes.
In my stash of crafty bits, I'd been saving a gold embossed floral filigree design, stamped a few years back at a
Stampin'Up workshop... perfect to use as a layering paper. Another rectangle of antique gold paper, a layer of gray cardstock, and a strip of metallic ribbon finish it off. Yes, you've guessed it... I'm a fan of subtle metallic accents; can never get enough.
Cardstock - khaki, gray, ivory
Metallic paper - antique gold
Paper cutter with scoring blade
Double-stick tape, tape runner, or glue stick - to adhere layers
Versamark stamp pad
Rubber background stamp - filigree scroll design
Embossing powder - gold
Heat gun
Pencil
1. Prepare khaki card blank. Cut a 6 1/2 inch x 11 inch piece of card. Score at midpoint of length (5 1/2 inch mark) and fold, creating a 5 1/2 x 6 1/2 inch card.
2. Stamp design on ivory card with Versamark. Sprinkle generously with embossing powder, tap off excess, and heat until powder has melted and raised. When cool, trim rectangle to 2 3/4 inches x 4 inches.
3. Cut gold paper ( 3 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches) and gray cardstock (4 x 5 inches) rectangles.
4. Adhere layers on card as pictured.
5. Adhere frame sticker (2 x 3 inches) to center of embossed rectangle.
6. Mark center of frame with pencil dot.
Quilling Supplies:
Tool - needle or slotted
Paper - 1/8 inch graduated color, olive green, orchid
- suitable for paper
ScissorsRulerTweezersPaper piercing tool or T pin -
to apply glue
Glass head pins Plastic lid - to use as a glue palette
Non-stick workboard - cork or Styrofoam - something into which you can stick pinsDamp cloth - to keep fingers free of glue
If you're new to quilling, my tutorial
here has all the information you'll need to get started. Keep in mind that at first glance, quilling looks more complicated than it is. Many of the different shapes start with the very same building block... a round coil that's pinched in different ways to create a variety of shapes. To make most types, you'll slide the strip of coiled paper off the tool and glue the end, forming a circle - then pinch as shown/described below.
loose coil on needle tool (or you can use a slotted tool - it's usually easier for beginners)
To quill the shapes for this design:
Marquise (make 1) - Make a 4 inch loose coil and glue end; pinch opposite sides, making two points.
marquiseShaped marquise (make 4) Make a 4 inch marquise. Holding points of marquise, curve one end to the left and the other end to the right, making it resemble a leaf.
shaped marquiseV scroll (make 1) - Fold a 4 inch strip in half; roll each end outward, away from midpoint.
Heart scroll (make 1) - Fold a 4 inch strip in half; roll each end inward, toward midpoint.
Loose scroll (make 3) - Roll a 3 inch strip; smooth paper allowing tail to curve slightly, leaving other end coiled.
Work on non-stick board:
1. Make blossom: Glue the point of heart scroll inside V scroll. Glue one end of marquise inside the heart scroll.
2. Make stem: Arrange and glue three loose scrolls as pictured.
3. Make leaves: Glue two shaped marquises side-by-side for each leaf, pressing into leafy shape. Glue onto loose scroll stem.
4. Spread a shallow puddle of glue on a plastic lid.
5. Grasp the finished flower with tweezers and dip the underside gently in the glue. Position it in the center of the frame.
Tip: When working with graduated color quilling strips, if you would like the color variations to be the same, as I did for the leaves with each coil having a white center, you'll need to cut paper lengths from the same portion of strips. Graduated color strips are available from most online quilling suppliers.
Carol's art cannot be summed up easily, as her accomplishments are so diverse... photography, drawing, painting, writing. One large design project that especially caught my eye was the incorporation of paper art - cutting and sculpture - into an interior space. 
For this serene entrance hall in a home atop a beautiful Yorkshire dale, Carol cut flowers from ivory handmade cotton rag paper with scalpel and scissors, and then sculpted them by hand before clustering in a clear Perspex box. 
She wanted to bring the essence of nature into the calm, spacious interior, but not in an obvious way.
paper butterflies
In the past year Carol approached paper cutting as a relative novice, but soon mastered pristine, organic forms of nature. 
Carol has been exploring other avenues with her paper art too. She says this Dark Night piece was just a flight of fancy, but it's the most popular image on her Flickr site, way above anything else.
Recently Carol was on a path of colorful crepe paper shoes. She made them as more of a personal journey, but they attracted the attention of the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper's Art and Design editor, leading to interest from a New York ad agency. 
Where will Carol's creativity take her next? She tells me she's been designing patterns based on her sketches and photography that can be used in future projects... glass panels, for example.... think of damask with a twist. Follow Carol's odyssey via her website.
