Happy 2011!

Suzana Ilic of Serbia, whose wonderful quilling I've featured before, recently posted this incredibly detailed card on her blog, Quilling with Fun. What a festive celebration of the new year!


The moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to share Suzana's clever design with those of you who haven't yet discovered her site.


I love how she positioned tiny packages on the numbers, draped ribbons over edges, and gilded little leaves as realistic holly with tight coil berries.


Soon it will be 1-1-11... pretty cool! Wishing you a healthy and happy 2011 with plenty of creative time. See you all next year!

Snow Day

On Christmas Day, Delaware experienced my favorite kind of snow... festive flurries that didn't accumulate - this is key! The 26th was a different story entirely, as a blizzard zoomed up the Atlantic seaboard and is still wreaking havoc as I type. Oh well, the crazy weather sets the stage perfectly for today's collection of snowy projects.


First up is a wintertime card in silver and blue, decorated with embossed trees and miniature quilled snowflakes. Sure, it would have been a good Christmas card, but sometimes it's nice to send a New Year greeting.


Just a bit of white mulberry paper adds a frosty look. The snowflakes are composed of basic quilling shapes... teardrops, marquises, tight coils, and heart scrolls.


This wedding invitation, more than any other I've done, practically demanded the addition of quilling due to its tone-on-tone embossed snowflake design.


Quilled mini-flakes, a gossamer ribbon, and a silver frame resulted in its being a gift the bride proclaimed as one of her favorites. (Hearing that bit of news later on was pretty wonderful!) But obviously I wasn't remembering grade school science class when I created some of the flakes with more (or less) than six sides - whoops.

And look! Here's proof the cool Paper Zone snowflakes really are easy to make.

I wound up making several smaller ones too, to use on presents instead of bows. The giant one took just six sheets of computer paper and turned out to be the perfect size to hang above our hearth - I may leave it up all winter!

Christmas Calm

Ubercrafter Kim told me that a few years ago she made oodles of quilled snowflakes and gave them all away. "Isn’t it funny how a craft can overtake a person…then they drop it…and then it reemerges in fever-form once again?" That's the place Kim finds herself now, after being inspired by Yulia Brodskaya's beautiful quilled typography. Here's just one example of a lovely swirled project Kim lettered... she hopes to find time to do more in the new year.


Her choice of the word Calm struck a chord with me, as my wish for each of you is that you find a bit of peace in your hectic day whenever you visit here... moments in which you'll perhaps be inspired to try something new.

As we finish up this very busy season of making, I extend my best wishes for a most wonderful holiday week ahead - one that's joyful and calm.

Quilling with Nella Romanova

Recently while checking out a link on You Tube, I noticed a video on the sidebar that featured what looked like a quilled bird... intrigued, I clicked on it and am so glad I did, as I was quickly introduced to Nella Romanova of Australia.

Quilled Phoenix

She designed this lovely, large, and densely coiled phoenix and tree as a Grade 12 school project and talks about it in the video, and has also posted another one which is a tutorial on her self-taught, finger-rolling quilling method. I hope you'll take a moment to enjoy charismatic Nella's videos. The first one is a bit pixelated, but still very watchable.





I contacted Nella for permission to share her work here and she agreed to answer a few questions about it.

How did you happen to discover quilling?

I discovered quilling when I was thinking of ideas for my art major in the last year of high school. I had an idea of creating a very large artwork which was different to what anyone else had done, and remembered the work of Yulia Brodskaya who is actually my inspiration. Her art is absolutely amazing. I decided to put my own spin on it by creating the whole image out of quilled swirls.

What do you like about quilling?

I like quilling because it's such a creative way of creating an image using different coloured paper, and there is a real 3D aspect to it. There are so many ways to do it and it can make any image look very beautiful.

Quilled Dolphin

Are you an art major at university and are you planning to pursue an artistic career?
At university I'm actually studying law, however my passions are creative things such as art and acting. I don't plan to study art at university or pursue it as a career because, like all artists, I sometimes don't have the motivation to work on a particular project. Art as a hobby is a lot more free and you can create anything, any time!

What is your favorite artistic medium?
I love using plain pencils to draw portraits; it's one of my strengths. This is one I've recently been working on. However, I also enjoy working with coloured paper, especially to create quilling projects and other paper craft like scrapbooks and cards - I always make my own cards for people's birthdays and celebrations.

Thanks Nella, for being such a good ambassador of quilling and for sharing your talent and sense of humor via your videos. Best success to you!

Christmas Card Inspiration

Today I'd like to show you two cards I received in the mail last Christmas. I call them keepers, as they're so special they definitely aren't going into the pile to be cut up as gift tags!


This one is a quilled card that isn't really quilled. Well, let me clarify that... there was an original quilled version of course, but my Australian friend, Licia Politis, photographed her modern disc wreath and adhered the glossy picture to a card blank. What a time saver this is when you need to send a lot of cards. It's also much lighter to mail and no bubble wrap required! I love the fresh colors too, which are a nice play on traditional Christmas-y red and green.

Here's a variation of the same idea that Licia shared with me. Silvery metallic and dots, dots, and even more dots on the ribbon - so pretty.


Then there's this beauty I received from my friend in Japan, Motoko Nakatani. It's a finely detailed paper cut positioned on foam pop-dots overtop a printed glade of evergreens. Paper cutting is something I plan to explore in the new year, and I love this idea of superimposing a cut scene over another image - such a nice effect. I'm not sure if the cutting was done by hand or laser, but either way, it makes for an effective card. (edited - I heard back from Motoko and the cutting was done with a laser.)


Allow me to branch out just a bit to show you what just might be the most beautiful cookies ever - seriously, almost too pretty to eat! I saw these on Cake Wrecks one Sunday when baked disasters are replaced with truly wonderful goods. (You read Cake Wrecks, right? It's hilarious.) These are gingerbread cookies from Whipped Bakeshop in Philly, with a design of scrolls and flourishes that's calling out to be replicated in rolled paper. People sometimes ask where I get inspiration for quilled designs... from now on I can add cookies to the list!

Hallmark Celebrates 100 Years

I saw this story on the news over the weekend and just had to investigate further.


In a play on the lyric of a well-known Christmas carol, the visual merchandising team at Halls Plaza and Halls Crown Center in Kansas City (retail stores of parent company Hallmark) spent much of the past year preparing to literally "Deck the Halls" this holiday season.


click on video to see full-size version at YouTube

In honor of the company's centennial anniversary, the team, led by Don Rogers, crafted a wonderland through creative application of decades worth of archived Hallmark Christmas greetings. More than 40,000 cut, folded, and crimped cards were used to construct everything from trees and dog collars to ballgowns and pajamas.


Such imagination, innovation, and attention to detail! One store window represents 1/1/11 - New Year's Day, with kicked off shoes, downed streamers, overturned bottles, and even an ice bag made of cards to subdue that morning-after headache!





Catch a glimpse of behind the scenes activity on the Halls blog and see additional pictures of in-store and window displays here and here.

Yulia Brodskaya at Work

If you haven't checked the News section of quiller extraordinaire Yulia Brodskaya's website in a while, you're in for a treat.


Not only has Yulia created a Christmas design for Coin, a chain of Italian department stores, but also book covers, and an ad for a Turkish confectionery company. The most exciting thing to me though, is a video in which we get a glimpse of Yulia's process as she designs a series of numbers for Danish bank, Spar Nord. (Hey, it seems she works from home at a super-cluttered table, just like the rest of us!)



Another Yulia sighting... there's been speculation among the online quilling community this week that a little Christmas tree image on a new Target gift card is also her design. She previously did a wrapped package gift card for the chain of U.S. stores.

One other fun thing for today... I noticed a post via @strictlypaper on Twitter about beautiful store windows (La Rinascente in Milan) that are featuring The Angel, a hand and computer crafted sculpture by British paper artist and designer, Richard Sweeney.

Here's one lovely image to get you started... see more of Richard's work on Flickr.

Star Lanterns and More

'Tis the season to try our hand at creating all sorts of holiday decor from simple paper. I've been saving up my favorites to share all at once, so... ready, set, make!


Here's a step-by-step tutorial from Lisa Anne at Harmony Valley for a lovely star lantern made of painted and oiled watercolor paper... we're talking watercolor paints and vegetable oil - nothing complicated - which provides a nice translucency. A mantel grouping or a row of these down the center of a table would be beautiful!


Perhaps you remember my German bell tutorial. I recently heard from Norm Riediger who has posted a handy how-to video on his Victoria Norman Home Blog for the same style bell. Norm's tutorial has a nice twist - not only do you get to see one being made, but you can print out a pretty green and gold scrolled version, ready to fold, using his template.


Norm has also posted a template for a cute gingerbread house pop-up card. (And also a little cottage - what a nice housewarming card.) There's a video on the same page in which he shows us exactly how to make them. Norm's a good guy!


Another very cool idea is a Polish porcupine ornament. I was eying these on Etsy recently and - lo and behold - the very same day, Jessica Jones at How About Orange posted one of her always enjoyable tutorials. And thanks also to one of her commenters who linked to a great how-to video.


Jeromina Juan has a blog filled with clever ideas... I love these chubby rolled paper ornaments she made that are trimmed with quilled scrolls. The full tutorial can be found at Paper Plate and Plane.


And maybe you saw Jeromina's adorable Lego- Inspired Advent Calendar/Treat Boxes that were featured on Craftzine. As we're not terribly far into December, you can either (go crazy and) make one right away to catch up, or bookmark the page for next Christmas. Actually, spreading the task of punching a zillion holes over the course of a year might not be a bad idea.... your hands will thank you. The project is a pretty hefty amount of work, but what an impressive design!


Last, but not least, here's a twirled snowflake ornament that would be beautiful as a tree topper or hung as a cluster on a mirror or window. Perhaps the snowflake looks familiar to you as it did to me... I've always put off making one of these because the twists and rolls give me brain freeze. This year I'm determined to give it a go, thanks to a link for a template and video, found via the blog of a chain of stores out west, Paper Zone. I daresay it actually looks much easier than I realized. Please hold me to my promise to make one, won't you?!

[Edited to say I made more than one as they turned out to be quite easy! See what I did with them here.]

Card Making Tips

Here's another card idea that features a bit of quilling - just enough to impress the recipient (well, one can hope!), but not so much that it's overwhelming to even think of making a nice stack to send out to friends and family this year. Yes, there's still time - this card goes together pretty quickly, trust me. The full tutorial can be found at the always inspiring Craftzine.


My best advice when paper crafting is to use the highest quality supplies you can find. A fair amount of time can go into making a special card, so choose cardstock that's sturdy enough to stand tall, even when embellishments are added. Invest in a paper cutter that comes with a scoring tool - this will make your fold lines crisp and true. My trusty Fiskars cutter isn't at all fancy, but it gets the job done. Use a bone folder, or even the back of a spoon, to further sharpen those folds.

There are so many wonderful papers available... patterns, colors, textures, foil, vellum, you name it. For this particular design, I'd like to give a shout out to the velvet paper I used for the deep green and red packages. It comes in rich colors and cuts beautifully... actually, I think it looks and feels like suede even more than velvet. Whatever you call it, it's pretty fabulous stuff and especially nice for holiday cards.

Take care to use adhesives that truly hold the paper layers and extras in place. This takes a little trial and error... I've had my share of failures, so hopefully this list will help you avoid frustration. A favorite glue to use with regular quilling paper is Elmer's Clear School Glue because I appreciate that a little puddle of it to dip from doesn't develop a "skin", the way white glue does. Crafter's Pick: The Ultimate! is great for slick, pearlized quilling paper and for gluing acrylic or metal embellishments on a card. I usually use a UHU or Scotch glue stick to adhere card layers because they allow the flexibility of positioning adjustments. Double-stick tape and a tape runner are excellent too, but keep in mind they won't provide the same wiggle room.


Try to make your cards a standard size so they'll fit a purchased frame... this one is 5 x 7 inches, for example, or you might go with 4 x 6 inches. What a great compliment it would be if the recipient loves your card enough to frame it as a mantel decoration to display for many Christmases to come!

If you have any favorite card making tips of your own, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. We can all learn from one another!