Tutorial1.pdf

Tutorial: An introduction to paper quilling

As you probably know, paper quilling or paper filigree can be used for creating greeting cards, decorating objects and even building three-dimensional sculptures. This is a getting started quilling guide, where I'm showing the basics of paper quilling by the example of making a simple flower. The entire process should take about 30 minutes. There are special tools and papers for quilling, but let's manage with only things everybody has usually at hand:         

sheets of double-sided colored paper (A4 or Letter size) wooden toothpicks/cocktail sticks, or a slotted tool metal ruler crafts knife pencil white craft glue (PVA) template with circles cutting mat or board nice colored or patterned paper for the base

1. Make marks of 3 mm (1/8 inch) along the short edges of a paper sheet. Always start measuring from the same edge, since the last mark may turn out shorter, than needed.

2. Cut strips using the craft knife and ruler. Try cutting a few sheets at a time: clamp them with office clips or clothes pegs. Press the ruler thoroughly and make sure the knife is sharp. Cut with one movement, applying strong pressure onto the knife and being careful not to cut your fingers (and table). You get colour paper strips 3 mm (1/8 inch) wide and approximately 30 cm (11 inches) long.

3. For a petal take a strip and roll it tightly around a toothpick. You might want to make a slit in the toothpick, it holds the end of a strip and makes the start easier.

4. Gently pull the roll off the toothpick and put in into the circles template. Choose a circle of 1.5-2 cm (5/8 to 3/4 inch) in diameter. Release it, the paper unrolls up to the size of the circle. Don't hold the roll for a long time, it won't unroll otherwise.

5. Glue the end of the strip and let dry.

6. Take the coil out and pinch it on one side. You've just got one of the basic quilling shapes (see at the end of this article), which is called a "teardrop". There are about 20 basic shapes, but the idea is always the same: roll and pinch.

7. Make 5 more "teardrops" in the same manner — the other petals of the flower.

8. And now let's make a leaf. Repeat steps 3 through 5, then take out the coil and pinch two opposite ends simultaneously. This shape is called an "eye".

9. We'll use another shape for the second leaf for a change. This shape is called, strangely enough, a "leaf". Do everything as if you were making an "eye", but after pinching shift the hands in opposite directions without releasing the shape.

10. Now making the center of the flower is easy: just roll a coil and leave it as is. To make it smaller use a smaller circle in the template (about 1 cm or 3/8 inch). It's called a "loose coil", by the way. 11. Arrange the elements, mark their position on the base, then apply a thin layer of glue to the bottom of the shapes and attach them to the base.

Some basic quilling shapes for reference:

Paper Quilled Flower Pot

Miniature paper quilling designs are so lovely to look at. This paper quilling tutorial shows you how to make a miniature flower pot with a bunch of tiny flowers. The materials for this quilling project are strips of quilling paper, a slotted quilling tool, a toothpick and a small amount of glue.

To make the miniature flower pot, join 7 strips of purple colour quilling paper and 1 strip of white colour quilling paper to form a very long strip of paper. With a quilling tool, start rolling from the purple end of the long strip of paper to make a tight coil.

Gently push the centre of the coil so that it extrudes outward to form the shape of a flower pot.

Apply a generous amount of glue on the inside of the pot to hold the shape. Let the glue dry.

Fringe a strip of green quilling paper to make the leaves of the miniature plant.

Twirl the fringed quilling paper around a toothpick coated with glue.

Take a strip of quilling paper with a smaller width and wrap it around the top rim of the pot to give the pot a more ecstatic look.

Make about 8-10 small yellow fringed flowers. The instructions for making quilled fringed flowers can be found in one of my previous posts.

Push one end of the toothpick into the centre of the pot. Trim off the other end of the toothpick not covered with leaves. Stick the fringed yellow flowers onto the toothpick. Stuff the bottom of the pot with more green fringed quilling paper and use glue to hold them in place.

How to fold a rose (quilling)

It's amazing how every quiller has her own method to fold a rose. I, too, have some tricks that I've never seen before, either on the Web or in a book. So, please welcome my — yet another — tutorial on making folded roses. In order to create a rose like one in the picture, you will need a 3/8"-wide (~1 cm), 12"-long (~30 cm) strip of paper, a quilling tool and glue.

Step 1: Insert the end of the paper strip into the slit of your quilling tool. Step 2: Roll the strip a little onto the quilling tool, making two or three turns. In the photographs I turn the tool counter-clockwise. Step 3: Bend the strip out and down near the tip of the quilling tool, at an angle of about 110120 degrees. Step 4: Roll the the crease a little onto the tool.

Step 5: Make another crease close to the end of the previous one by bending the strip out and down again. Step 6: Roll the new crease a bit onto the quilling tool. Step 7: Repeat rolling and folding the strip, creating the rose flower. Step 8: When you've used up the strip, take the rose off the quilling tool and glue the end of the strip down to the bottom side of the flower.

Step 9: Press the center of the rose down, the rolled end of the strip will peep out from its reverse side.

Step 10: Bend this end and glue it underneath the flower. This will keep it from unfolding. Step 11: Hold the flower together until the glue dries up. You can see what its reverse side looks like. Step 12: Now you may use your folded rose for a greeting card, quilled embellishment, etc. If you want to make a folded rose with a stem, you'll need to fold the flower around a toothpick, a cocktail stick or a piece of wire. The process in this case will be a bit different. You won't have a loose rolled end that you can glue underneath the flower to hold the layers together, so roll the rose directly onto a toothpick instead of a quilling tool. First, glue the end of the paper strip to the toothpick before starting to fold the rose. Then follow steps 2 through 8, except that you'll need to apply some glue between the layers as you go.

How to make fringed flowers

I was asked to explain how I make fringed paper flowers. You can find a lot of examples and tutorials on the Web, but since I was asked... Here's a detailed explanation. 1. Cut a paper strip 1 cm (3/8 inches) wide and about 28 cm (11 inches) long, which is the length of a standard paper sheet for A4 or Letter. Make small cuts at every 1-1.5 mm (1/16 inch) across the long edge of the strip. The cuts should be about 8 mm (a bit more than 1/4 inch) deep, you get a fringe with a narrow base. Cut gently to avoid cutting through the strip.

Some people use an office clip to limit the cuts. Try cutting this way, you may find it more convenient.

2. Roll the fringe into a tight coil using a quilling tool.

3. Apply a small amount of glue on the end and let it dry. You've got a sort of paper cylinder.

4. Fold the fringe outwards with your fingers. This is only one type of fringed flowers. Let me tell you about another one.

5. For the second type we also make a fringe, and then attach a narrow paper quilling strip (3 mm or 1/8 inch) to its end. The colour of the narrow strip will be the colour of the flower centre.

6. Roll up, starting from the tip of the narrow strip.

7. The narrow strip makes up the centre and the fringe makes up petals. Glue the end and let dry. 8. Peel the petals outwards. The flower is ready.

Try varying the width and length of strips, using different colour combinations, find new uses for your flowers. Be creative, good luck!

Quilled poppies step-by-step, part 1

My last quilling work, two poppies and a dandelion; its size is about 7 x 7 1/2 inches (17.5 x 19.5 cm) framed. This time I'd like to share with you complete, step-by-step instructions for making it. When I say "complete", I mean that you will see how each and every part of this piece was made. Actually, this will be a series of three tutorials, due to the relatively large number of different elements: 1. Petals of poppy flowers; 2. Flower centers and assembling the poppies; 3. Foliage and dandelion flower. For two poppies you will need eight red 24''(60cm)-long and 1/8''(3mm)-wide strips, adhesive (craft glue), scissors and a lot of pins. The petals are made using the husking technique, this particular method called also alternate side looping. For this method you will need also a cork-board (I bought mine in IKEA, it was a trivet in its previous life :). A foam-board or an old mouse pad would do as well. I recommend the following to make the assembling of petals easier: wrap the cork-board in wax paper or plastic food wrap, this prevents quilled elements from sticking to the board when you glue them.

I drew a different pattern for each petal to make the flowers look more natural, but you may use the template above. It can be printed and used right away to assemble the petals. Put it on the cork-board underneath the plastic wrap or wax paper, for the latter make sure you can see the pattern. Be aware that this template was intended for A5 paper, so you shouldn't resize it if printing on A4/Letter.

1. Make a small loop at one end of a quilling strip and push a pin through it to hold the end in place. Note, green arrows indicate spots where gluing is required.

2. Push another pin into the board at the top of the pattern and bring the strip around it, from the right-hand side to the left. Put a small amount of adhesive where the green arrow points.

3. Bring the strip around the pin at the bottom, glue it down where it touches the pin. Push another pin at the top of the pattern, some distance from the pin you already have there. Bring the strip around the new pin, this time it goes from left to right. Take the strip all the way to the bottom, apply a small amount of adhesive where the green arrow shows and glue the strip down.

4. Continue making loops by adding pins and alternating the sides (remember alternate side looping?). Try leaning the pins outwards so that the strip doesn't slip off. Don't forget to secure each loop at the bottom, in the point marked with the green arrow.

5. After you've reached the bottom of the pattern, apply a small amount of glue at the top of each loop (some of these points marked with arrows).

6. Bring the strip around the loops, gluing it down to the top of the inner loops as you go.

7. Secure the strip at the bottom by gluing it down at the point marked with the green arrow.

8. Cut off excess strip.

9. For two poppies, repeat steps 1-8 seven more times. If you're going to make only one flower, you will need just three more petals. Well, that wasn't easy at all! Looks like this is the first time I'm writing this much in English. Hope everything is clear, but if not, you're always welcome to ask me.

Quilled poppies step-by-step, part 2

What I like about paper filigree is that it presents almost endless challenges, and I like challenges :) In this project the poppy centers were a challenge, at least to me. Just to remind you, this is the second part of a three-part tutorial on making quilled poppies: 1. Instructions for making the petals; 2. How to make the centers and assemble the flowers; 3. Making the foliage and the dandelion.

Flower centers

To make each poppy center, you'll need a 12''-long (30cm) black strip.

1. Make a tight roll and then create a quilled hive or bell shape. This shape is often called a grape roll. Coat the inside of the shape with glue, spreading it on thick.

2. Cut a 1/16''-wide (1mm) strip of a very pale brown or pale yellow color. Glue three 1/2''long (13mm) pieces of the strip criss-cross onto the grape roll.

3. Prepare two 3/8 x 2 inches (1 x 5 cm) black paper strips and glue a 1/16''-wide (1-1.5mm) yellow strip along the long edge of each. Let the glue dry, then cut a fringe starting from the yellow strip's side.

4. Wrap each bell in a fringe, so that the cuts point in a direction opposite to the bell's top (criss-crossed strips).

5. Bend the fringe all the way up. Now it surrounds the bell shape and forms a kind of a cup around it.

Poppy flowers Now, let's put everything together and create a finished poppy flower.

1. Place two of your quilled petals at an angle to the surface, opposite each other. To keep the petals tilted, I just propped them against quilling elements that I haven't used in this project.

2. Apply a small amount of glue on the down side of another two petals and gently put them over the first pair. Let the glue dry.

3. Finally, attach a flower center to the flower. Repeat steps 1-3 for the other poppy.

The bud For the bud (it can be seen in Part 1 of the series), use three eye shapes, one red and two green, made from 6''-long (15cm) strips.

Quilled poppies step-by-step, part 3

With this post I'm finishing the three-part tutorial on making quilled poppies. If you haven't seen the previous parts, here's the full list: 1. Instructions for making quilled petals using husking; 2. How to make the centers using the fringed flower technique and assemble the flowers; 3. How to make the foliage (husking) and the dandelion flower (fringed flower).

Quilled foliage

1. Take three 1.5-2'' long green strips — the stems — and glue them together at one end. Place them on a cork board so that they diverge, and secure in place with pins.

2. Now you'll need one green and one olive green strips, both 24'' (60cm) in length. Glue the ends of these strips down at the point where the diverging strips meet. Start zigzagging the two strips, fixing them with pins and gluing to the "stem" strips as you go.

Note: Glue the two strips wherever they touch the stems. In order to do this, first glue down the olive (inner), and then the green (outer) strip.

3. Cut off excess strips. You're done.

Quilled dandelion For the dandelion flower you will need a 12''-long (30cm) yellow strip and a 2''-long (5cm) green strip, about 3/8''(1cm) in width both.

1. Glue the strips together to make a single strip. Cut jags into the green part from its end to the middle, and then a fringe all the way to the other end of the yellow part.

2. Roll the fringe onto a quilling tool starting from the yellow end.

3. Bend the jags, but not the fringe, down.

4. Open up the flower as you would normally do with a fringed flower. The leaf of the dandelion is paper-cut, I used embossing to add some dimension to it. Now you need only to choose a background, assemble the composition and mount it. So, add missing stems — three for the poppies and one for the dandelion, arrange the elements as you like, glue everything down. Frame the finished piece. That's it, hope you've enjoyed this tutorial.

How to make double fringed flowers

Another tutorial on quilled fringed flowers. This type is rather rear and I've never seen a detailed description of it. I already explained how to make simple fringed flowers earlier. You will need double-sided colored paper, scissors, glue, a ready-made or a do-it-yourself slotted tool, or just a wooden toothpick. 1. Cut a paper strip about 2-3 cm (1 inch) wide and 10 cm (4 inch) long. Fold it lengthwise.

2. Create a fringe by making small cuts at 45 degrees along the closed edge.

3. Attach to its end a regular — 3 mm (1/8 inch) wide and 25-30 cm (10 inch) long — quilling strip. This will make the center of the flower.

4. Roll tightly using a toothpick or quilling tool, starting from the tip of the narrow strip.

You don't have to shape the petals, they will fluff up by themselves.

5. After the fringe is rolled up, glue its tip and hold for a couple of minutes to let the glue dry a little.

Now you can use your flower for a greeting card or any other purpose.

In order to make a flower of the type shown below use only a wide strip. In this case it should be longer, about 20-30 cm (8-12 inch). Don't glue a narrow strip for the center, start rolling the fringe right away.

Tips To create a nice and smooth coiling when making a flower with center, try gluing the joint between the fringe and inner strip down to the coil. Do so right after you've finished rolling the center and before starting to roll the fringe. This will keep your coiling in place. Also, try rolling very tightly and apply a small amount (just a tiny dot) of adhesive after every wind. Try different papers, too thick or heavy paper may be unsuitable for this technique. You may also want to use a thicker tool than the usual quilling tool, for example a wooden toothpick or a bamboo skewer. Good luck!

How to make a simple paper frame

This time I'd like to share with you a simple and easy way to make a paper picture frame, like the one shown in the photo above. Personally, I like using such paper frames for my quilling.

This is how the template for such a frame looks like. Please note, that not the absolute size but the ratios are important for this explanation. Using this template you can make a frame that has borders of equal width and height. The parts to be removed are marked in red, the inner bold rectangle shows the part of a picture that will be visible.

So, first measure a picture you'd like to frame. Add ten times the width of the frame border to both dimensions. For example, if your picture is 10x15cm with 1cm wide border, the resulting size would be 10+10*1 by 15+10*1 = 20x25cm. Draw a rectangle according to your calculations and cut it out. Then measure and mark the folding lines and corners as the template shows. Start measuring from the outer edges of the paper. Cut away the parts shaded with red. To remind you, only the relative size of the parts is important. That is, if you want to make wider (and higher) borders, just multiply each number in the picture by the same factor.

Score the folding lines marked with blue dashes on the template. Use a special scoring tool, a thin embossing tool or simply a stick with rounded tip. Then fold as shown in the picture.

If you already have a picture to frame, glue it down now and then start assembling your paper frame.

Insert an end of each side border into its neighbor's end at the corners, one by one, like shown in the photos.

Generally, no adhesive is needed, but you may want to secure the frame with a small amount of glue.

If you want to make a frame with wide borders, the template will look like this (pay attention to the proportions):

And this one is for a deep frame, where the border's height is greater than its width.

The same principles apply for these templates as well: if you want another size, just multiply the numbers by a constant factor.

How to make a beveled picture frame out of paper

Long awaited instructions and templates for making a beveled paper frame I've used for my quilling projects "Poppies" and "Dandelions and raspberries". To additionally illustrate the use of a frame like this, I've created a quilled passionflower, which isn't a thoroughly designed work, so be indulgent, please. We're going to make a frame that is 2.5 cm (1 inch) wide and 2 cm (6/16 inch) deep. I'm sorry, but you'll have to use a ruler with metric system units for this project.

Step 1: Preparing a paper rectangle Measure the artwork to frame, add 10.5 cm at each side and cut out a rectangle of the dimensions you've calculated. Use heavyweight (240 gsm) cardstock paper.

Step 2: Drafting

Use one of the following methods to draw the lines: print out the template, cut it out and transfer onto the piece of cardstock you've prepared; alternatively, you may just draw the lines with a pencil according to the diagram above.

Templates for download Download one of the PDF templates for the right paper size and print it out. Make sure you don't resize or scale the page when printing. Template for A4 size Template for US Letter size There's no need to download a template if you're not going to print it. Just draw the lines following the diagram above. Notice that the corners are marked "top right", "bottom left" etc. Line up a cutout with a corresponding corner of the rectangle. Transfer the lines by pressing them into the paper, using a needle, or tracing the template around like shown in the photo. Using a pencil, mark with dots the points where the creases start. After repeating the procedure for all the four corners, connect the dots with lines that go along the paper edges.

Step 3: The cutout Carefully cut away the corners. Score the cardstock according to the crease lines and fold like shown below.

Step 3: Assembling Start assembling the frame. If you don't use the back of the frame as a background, glue your picture down to the frame at this point. Then fold the border like shown in the pictures, simultaneously inserting the sides of a corner into each other.

Repeat for the rest of the corners. When done, carefully glue the bottom of the border to the back of the frame.

Have you noticed that little square I'd left in the corner? It folds into a triangle, goes inside the border and gives the frame extra rigidness. I must credit Svetlana for this idea.