Quilled Poppy in Progress (5) and Custom Cut Paper

I've mentioned my love for paper from Daiso, a Japanese $2 dollar store. I've used it for many craft projects in the past. I wish they had more colors, because they offer a great range of shades in soft colors.

Here are their "warm" and "cold" color packs. They don't list the thickness/weight but it's heavier than standard quilling strips because I find it holds the curve or shape I want over a greater distance, yet is flexible enough for me to make my tight coils without splitting, as thicker stock does.

I use my Silhouette die cutter to cut lines in the paper, just shy of the ends so they stay in behaving sheets. Here are the 3 colors I've chosen to use in my poppy. I worried the dark one was too salmon, but it didn't look too bad when in place after all.

I would make my general outlines with the darker strips first.

Then I would start filling in with the medium pink.

Finally I would add the lightest strips.

I think the light strips were my favorite because some were practically slivers and I enjoy that organic shape rather than always have a straight edge on top.

To make them, I would hand cut the slivers from a cut strip, turn the strip over, and continue cutting slivers. After making a pile, I'd be ready to sprinkle them throughout.

When adding an end to an existing strip, I would tear the end and dip not only the edge, but that tail into glue. After setting it in place, I'd follow up the join with a good squeeze from my tweezers. It may seem overkill, but I find this makes the join much less noticeable than a cut end.

Besides the light slivers, I've been anticipating the light green grass the most. I trimmed these down using a ruler after figuring out the length. My eyes have always gone to that subtle detail in the photo.

I thought I was restraining myself during the process, but now that I'm done, I wish I had held back more. I thought the outline would continue to stand out, but now that it's filled, I'm losing it amongst the busyness. Oh well, can't remove it now.

So now that the base layer is done, I'll be working on the stamens next.