Sunday, April 21, 2013

Jewellery Box


I was thinking of making a utility item using quilling and thought of trying out with a little jewellery box. Initially I had thought of using a box as a mold and quill over it but then decided to use more solid shapes of quilling paper to create the box.

I used around 110 strips of 30 cm length to make this box. I started with making a circular rim with 21 tight coils. To make the walls, I again used light coils but as this paper was thinner than the base rim, I pushed the circles into tight ovals and glued over the base rim. I created the wall with 7 layers of circles. To make the base of the box, I used a combination of tight and loose coil shapes. The centre piece is a tight coil painted in bronze colour.

For the lid, I again started with a circular rim of tight coils. I lined the inside of this circular rim with two 6 mm strips that were flush on the outside but protruding on the inside. The reason for this is to make the lid fit snugly on the box without sliding off. For the handle knob, I joined a 4 cm long and 6 mm wide strip with a 30 cm long, 3 mm wide strip and made a tight coil. On the protruding centre, I glued on a paper bead /ball and painted the base and the bead into bronze colour.

And here are some pictures of how the box turned out. You can see that the paper appears wet as I covered it with varnish last night and that is still drying up.

The finished box.













A peak at the inside.













Top view of the inside.














The lid from the inside showing the protruding rim.











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Monday, April 8, 2013

Challenge inspired card

When I started quilling, I used to take time to add borders to the card or layer the paper before adding my quilling to it. But lately, I have been just quilling on the card. So when I saw a challenge with a sketch at Come and get it Challenges, I just had to give it a try.

After looking through different colour combinations, this is what I came up with. Hope you like it!

 




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If you find my work inspiring and create something similar, please quote my work and blog in your post. I would also appreciate if you leave a comment and follow my blog. All budding artists do need a pat on the back! Thanks for visiting! 

Sunday, April 7, 2013

The beautiful tangles.

Looking for new designs to quill, I dug into my embroidery book from a life time ago and decided to make the pattern on a card.

It looks so amazing in real life. The effects it produces looking from different angles is beautiful.

Here's how the picture looks from far.



And closer up.

And from an angle.


I am linking this post to 


If you find my work inspiring and create something similar, please quote my work and blog in your post. I would also appreciate if you leave a comment. All budding artists do need a pat on the back! Thanks for visiting!

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Blog Award - Yippee!!!

I am thrilled to receive my first ever blog award! Thank you so much Zoe for appreciating my work and passing me this honour.



Rules:

- thank  the person who gave you the award

- put a link of her/his blog in your blog

- put in your blog the logo of the award

- give the award to 7 blogs with less than 50 members

- put links to this blog

- inform these people that they received the award

- write 7 thing (facts) about yourself 


I have to pass this award to 7 bloggers with less than 50 members. Usually everyone is looking at popular blogs with a lot of followers so this is wonderful as it provides encouragement to new bloggers. Visit their blogs since they also have good crafts to share.:

  1. Nimmo
  2. Kavitha
  3. Swathi
  4. Maneka
  5. Sheetal
  6. Galina
  7. La Dolce Vita


Now 7 facts about myself:

  1. I love creativity in any form.
  2. I have tremendous patience.
  3. I am capable of thinking out of the box.
  4. I have always given handmade cards to friends and family.
  5. I have learnt quilling from fellow bloggers over internet.
  6. I love nature.
  7. I hate exercising.


Thursday, April 4, 2013

18th Birthday card

My son turned 18 this February. Now that is a landmark birthday! So I had to make something special for him. After raking my brain endlessly, I came up with this idea...

18 signifies legal adulthood. You are bestowed with a lot of rights: the right to drive, the right to vote, the right to signing all contracts without needing a guardian authorization, the right to a lot of good things as well as the right to legally pursue a lot of vices as drinking, smoking and gambling. So crossing the age of 18 opens up a special door, a door where he is legally allowed to make his own decisions. So basically at 18 you are provided with a key to a lot of rights.

My idea for the card was decided then. I wanted to make a key for him with the number 18 on it and a door that leads to freedom. I wanted to give him the message as Spiderman has said, "WITH GREAT POWERS COME GREAT RESPONSIBILITY" As my son's dream is to pursue law after completing his school this year, I wanted to write the message for him in a legal sounding language containing the gist of Spiderman's message.

When I told my quilling student whose son is 16 (now she is a dear friend) of my idea, she said she is getting goosebumps listening to the idea.

So much for the idea! Now on to the execution! This is the card that I have come up with.

I have used golden and black strips for the complete work. The shaft of the key is made by rolling a wider strip and then rolling it in golden paper. The letters FREEDOM are quilled with golden paper. All the text is written in free hand. The chain is quilled with 1.5 mm golden paper. I didn't want to glue the key down to the card, so I created a casing for the key where it can rest. My son can take the key in hand when opening the door that leads to adulthood. Of-course the key is connected to a key chain that is glued to the card so he won't loose the key!

Dear reader, you can be the judge if the idea was executed in a good way or not.





                                  


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If you find my work inspiring and create something similar, please quote my work and blog in your post. I would also appreciate if you leave a comment. All budding artists do need a pat on the back! Thanks for visiting!


Sunday, March 31, 2013

New life in a pond - with tutorial


The Homyachok scrap challenge about spring in a circle was at the back of my mind when I started with this project yesterday. Halfway through my project when I looked again at the challenge requirements, I realized that the challenge had expired and the next one, 'NEST' was on. So I modified a bit and here is the result. 


I am so happy and thrilled with the result as it has come out better than I had thought. This is a centerpiece representing a pond with a lotus flower and leaves. The clever duck has made its nest on the edge between some long grass. The  mother duck is with three little ducklings that have just hatched with two in the water and one still in the nest. There are broken egg shells in the nest and one whole egg that is ready to hatch any moment! The mother duck is taking its newborn ducklings for a first swim in the pond.

























I am linking this project to
  1. Craft Room - In the garden
  2. Artistic Inspirations - Challenge 34, Fantasy
  3. Fussy and Fancy - Spring Days
  4. Pin and Tack - Spark your creativity
  5. Creative Craft Challenges 2 - For the kids
  6. Milk Coffee Challenge - Anything but square
  7. Unstampabelles Challenges - #22 Anything but a card
  8. Through the Craft Room Door - April 2-8 TTCRD Challenge
  9. Homyachok-scrap-challenge : Nest and In a Circle
                

This time while making the project I took an extra effort to take snaps of the steps. So here is the tutorial of the project. As I was looking at images of real ducklings and ducks, I had to do hit and trial to come up to the correct dimensions for each part. 
I have used self cut paper using the hand shredder.

Pond Frame

Blue strips (3 mm) - 40 strips of 30 cm each
Pink strips (3 mm) - 40 strips of 30 cm each

I started with rolling the strips into loose coil. Then I pinched these into teardrops and joined them in a chain. These I then connected and this formed the frame of the pond.
    



Duckling 

    Supplies for 1 duckling



Yellow strips (3 mm) - 2 strips of 30 cm each
Yellow strips (1.5 mm) - 2 strips of 15 cm each
    Orange strips (1.5 mm) - 2 strips of 8 cm each
    Yellow strip (6 mm)  - 1 strip of 15 cm, fringed very finely
    Small black beads - 2

Start with rolling the yellow strips into tight coils and the orange strip into a slightly loose tight coil (just release the tight coil slightly without letting it loosen out completely)

 


    Now using the 3D dome (or any spherical shape) to shape the tight coils into hemispheres. Do this for one larger yellow coil and 2 smaller yellow coils.






Note that the dome should be smaller than the tight coil. In this picture as the dome C is larger than the tight coil, I have used the smaller dome B as shown in the picture above.






With the remaining larger yellow coil, shape it into a cone using a conical shape as a pencil. 







Now push one end of the tip to one side so you get a shape as a horn. Be careful while doing this because it is easy to pull too hard and let the inner coils escape out. If this happens the best is to start again with a new strip.






Always apply glue to the inside surface of any dimensioned shape so that it well keep its shape when the glue dries.



For the beak, shape the orange coils into a heart shape and give it some dimension with your nails. 







Join together the 2 bigger pieces (body)  and the 2 smaller pieces (head).







Now start wrapping the fringed tip on the body of the duckling starting from the narrow tip end.








Continue wrapping till the complete piece is covered with the fringed strip.







Now glue together the body, head and the beak. For the beak, first stick together the two heart shaped pieces at the wide end so that the narrower triangular side forms an open beak.








Now glue the beads and the duckling is ready.








Duck

Supplies for the duck



While strip (3 mm) - 1 strip of 150 cm (I joined together 5 strips of 30 cm each)
While strip (7 mm) - 1 strip of 150 cm (I joined together 5 strips of 30 cm each)
    While strip (1.5 mm) - 2 strips of 30 cm each
    While strip (1.5 mm) - 2 strips of 60 cm each
    Orange strips (1.5 mm) - 2 strips of 15 cm each
    White strip (3 mm)  - 1 strip of 30 cm
    Small black beads - 2

Make tight coils with the 2 long (150 cm) strips, the two narrow 30 cm strips and the one 30 cm strip. Make a very loose coil with the two 60 cm strips. Make slightly loose coils with the orange strips and shaping them into heart shape, make the beak as described in the steps for the duckling.

(In the picture here the two larger coils are both of 3 mm width. but I had to later replace one of them with the 7 mm strip)


And this is the reason why! Because the strips were too narrow, I was not able to shape them properly into a conical shape. So I had to start again with a wider strip.








The remaining steps for making the body and the head are the same as that for the duckling. The only difference here is that I inserted a tight coil between the head and the body. For the wings, create shaped teardrops with the 2 loose coils.




And assemble the beak and the wings on the duck like this. Glue on the two black beads for eyes.








Nest

Supplies for the nest and its content



Brown strips - Random size and number
While strips (1.5 mm) - 8 strips of 15 cam each
    Yellow strips (3 mm) - 2 strips of 30 cm each
    Yellow strip (6 mm) - 1 strip of 10 cm fringed very finely
    Orange strips (1.5 mm) - 2 strips of 8 cm each
    

For creating the nest randomly stick together brown strips on dome shape creating a nest. Create tight coils with the while strips to form the egg halves. Stick two halves to make one egg and let the other halves remain as halves. Shape the yellow strips into tight coils and create domes and stick together forming a ball. Cover it with the fringed strip. Make beaks from the orange strips and glue it to the yellow fringe covered ball. Glue the egg halves, the one full egg and the duckling hatch-ling in one half of the egg randomly in the nest.


Water

For the water effect, cut out a yellow circle that is slightly larger than the inner gap in the frame. I have used a normal office ink pad and sponge to give on water effect on the circle.







Lotus flower and leaves


For the lotus leaves, I created triangles from 1.5 mm green strips and joined them together to make a circle. I also husked a circle but forgot to take any pictures :( 





For the lotus flower, I used 1.5 mm pink and while strips. The top two layers are made with 7.5 cm long strips for each petal and the bottom layer is made with 15 cm long strips for each petal. I have made the teardrops by coiling together a pink and white strip to give a shaded effect.  A cone is placed inside the top layer petals.




Assembly

I first glued the circular paper (the water body) inside the frame.
To make the duck and ducklings stand erect, I stuck tiny circles under their bodies. The nest is stuck on the border of the pond on the frame. I inserted and glued some green diagonal cut strips on the pink and blue pieces of the frame surrounding the nest. The two tiny ducklings are close to the nest and the mother duck is further away all in swimming in a line. The lotus leaves are on one side of the pond along with the lotus flower.

Hope you enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed making it!

If you find my work inspiring and create something similar, please quote my work and blog in your post. I would also appreciate if you leave a comment. All budding artists do need a pat on the back! Thanks for visiting!


Friday, March 29, 2013

Spring is here

Although living in Dubai, you just see summer days and not so summer days but at this time of the year, I am always reminded of the snow and the wait for the first leaves to sprout when I used to live in Sweden just the winter before last. So I decided to make this wall hanging as a welcome to spring! For the long leaves twigs, my thanks to Anatasia for posting such a helpful tutorial. I will be coming up with a tutorial for the shrubs, a technique that I have created on my own instead of using husking. My favorite here is the border.




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If you find my work inspiring and create something similar, please quote my work and blog in your post. I would also appreciate if you leave a comment. All budding artists do need a pat on the back! Thanks for visiting!

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