Paper Dragonfly and Lotus Flower Party Favor Gift Box - 3D SVG Cut File

Paper Dragonfly and Lotus Flower Party Favor Gift Box - 3D SVG Cut File

Whenever I see a dragonfly, I feel very lucky that day. They’re so mesmerizing and fleeting.

Quilling Fringed Flower #1: Dandelion Tutorial and Pattern

Quilling Fringed Flower #1: Dandelion Tutorial and Pattern

The first time I saw a fringed flower, I fell in love immediately. I had no idea quilling could take on such dimension. I knew then and there, someday I would buy an electric cutter and make flowers to my heart's content! 

In this video (the first of a series of fringed flowers), I'll be showing how to 

• fringe by hand
• fluff your petals to give them life
• make a smaller bud
• mix colors for a multicolored pom-pom or fireworks
• add them to a free printable card

Cut-Coil Quilling for Rounded Flowers

I was buoyed by my quick and happy results from the cut coil technique for pointed petal flowers I showed in an earlier post, and assumed a rounded petal version would be just as easy. I started off well enough, with this flower as my first attempt.

It was a rocky road after that. I found it difficult to achieve results consistent enough to explain my process.

From top left to right, the strips measurements I used were:

1) 3 x 3" strips, not loosened
2) 4 x 3" strips, quilled with a skewer
3) 1 x 1.5, 2, 2.5" strips
4) 4 x 4" strips, uncoiled and re-coiled by hand for a looser coil = too many large rings
5) 3 x 3" strips, flattened curves by hand after cutting
6) 4 x 3" strips
7) 4 x 3" strips, not loosened at all
8) 4 x 3" strips, curves massaged after cutting
9) 4 x 3" strips, curves massaged after cutting

I enjoy these flowers overall, but want to make them more consistently, so they look like a bouquet and belong together, because I'd like to show how to make another monogram using the cut-coil technique in the future.

In example 4, uncoiling and re-coiling by hand is what I do to relax the tension of a coil. After coiling a strip, the tension is quite tight (as seen in the 2nd photo below). I use my tool to uncoil it, stopping just before the innermost coil. Then I re-coil it by hand, controlling the tension as I go to make a looser coil. This is different from simply coiling it loosely the first time, because now the paper has a memory of how it's been shaped. I'm simply doing it looser, and it ends up being concentric, like a conch shell. I show photos in my book, Pretty Quilled Cards, and I'll show it here in this blog when I get a chance to shoot again (I dropped my light bulb and it's shattered now).

I usually coil at the very tip of my tool, but since I wanted to cut the coils, I wrapped the paper further down the tool to have a larger inner circle.

I even used a skewer stick to achieve larger circles. I would save the tightly wrapped coil for the innermost part of my flower as a starting point of the flower.

I think the main difficulty lay in the fact that after the coils were cut, the arcs were so different and needed massaging into a usable curve. The pinched petals in my previous post were already mainly shaped. So this type of flower took more time for me and it was harder to maintain consistency.
Anyway, I hope you have better results than I did! If you do give it a go, I'd love to hear about it. 

Phillippa Reid of Quilliance had already made the leap to this flower and has made a wonderful cut-coil round petal flower, encircled with a mix of techniques and colors. She has also experimented with cut-coil methods previously and has other links in her post worthy of a visit!

Quilling Tutorial: Outlined Flowers

I'm so excited to show you something completely new!

I have often admired simple line drawings of flowers and wished I could express it with quilling. Yes, I know it's ironic that I didn't have the patience to measure each strip to outline every petal since I just quilled my challenging pink poppy. So it's with great pleasure to tell you a bolt of lightning hit me with this easy-peasy-quicky idea!

Notice the random size of petals? See how the points are not always centered? I love that because I'm innately anal about my precision and this forces me to be looser, more natural, and less controlled.

I'd like to ask you to take a moment and think how I may have done this before having you scroll down to find the answer. Again, I'm LA-A-AZY! So how did I do this flower gift tag in less than 10 minutes?

Thought of some ideas? OK, scroll down to read the answer.

I am going to call this technique "Cut-Coil" because that's all I did. After pinching a traditional teardrop shape (left unglued), I cut the bottom and gently pried open the petals. I used 4 random lengths of scrap pink strips and cherry picked whatever petals seemed to fit best.

I placed the inner coil in the middle, then radiated the petals all around it, building the blossom as I went. Take care to keep the point visually aligned with the center of the flower when you are placing it down. Look at the petal pointing left. See how one side is longer than the other? I deliberately place it so it appears to be an overlapping petal, just as it is in nature. I also opened some medium-sized petals and placing them in the outer rings to make it seem more full.

These two flowers were quickly thrown together, but I'm looking forward to seeing what else can be done with it. Please let me know if you experiment with it as well!

On a side note, I apologize for my watermarked name everywhere, but my name has been removed from my photos and used without my permission for selling kits and services. I am now doing it in a way that's harder for them to remove by blending the shadow into the photo, not just typing my name on top. Does anyone know of a better way to protect your work? I'd really love to know.

Paper Orchid Birthday Card

 

My wonderful neighbor loves orchids and receives them as gifts. For his birthday, I wanted to make a paper orchid and used my own for inspiration.

I scanned and traced the petals, reducing them to 25%, then cut out with my Silhouette die cutter. Next I added color with a marker and water color paints. Using a dried out ballpoint pen, I scored the middle vein and curled the petals. After stacking and gluing the layers together, the blossom simply comes to life.

 

I poked a hole in the middle of the smallest bud and inserted the end of the floral wire, adding white glue to hold it in place. I then glued the open blossoms to the wire, ensuring my glue coated the wire thoroughly.

My favorite part is the delicate pair of curly wisps in the center of the flower. 

Then I cut two leaves and manually scored the vein with a dried up ballpoint pen. The pot is made of 3 layers of metallic copper card stock and floats a bit due to adhesive foam dots on the back. It was great having my real plant as a visual reference, because it helped me realize I should glue the items asymmetrically, not all centered. I believe it's these small subtleties that makes a piece.

I have moved my plant throughout the room, depending on my needs, and the stems would gently wave up and down, heavy with the weight of so many blossoms. I deliberately left the wire unglued to his birthday card, and as I place it on a table, it also gently waves, just like the real thing - so fun to watch! The blooms are cut from 65lb paper, so it's sturdy and gives just the right amount of weight on the wire to make it bob.

By the way, I'm often asked how I managed to have 4 new stems bloom. This is my first orchid and I feared it would remain the desolate stick with 2 leaves I often see in homes. My secret? I have a worm condo and fed my orchid the worm tea.

My orchid files are available via my Etsy store. I also include larger sizes for other greeting cards and a tapered gift box, perfect as a wedding party favor.

Quilled Thank You Cards (7 of 8)

I was running out of left over bits, so this one was a bit of a struggle. Not my fave, but it still runs along the same vein as the rest.

It's an amazing time we live in when I can "show and tell" online and within seconds, my thoughts are read halfway around the world. Without the web and its crafting community, I wouldn't have had the exposure I've had. I'm thankful for the opportunities that have been handed to me on a silver platter.

Quilled Thank You Cards (3 of 8)

This is obviously a variation of Card 1. The deeper colors were the client's first choice, but we had to swap it out because it took away from the main piece. It was also too large compared to the overall design. Sometimes with quilling, I can't tell until it's all done.

I'm very thankful my hubby cooks (so much better than I can), and didn't mind taking on all our meals, prepping, and clean up so I could focus solely on this project.

Quilling a Housewarming Card

Short and sweet, a card for someone's new home sweet home.
I love how quilling can say so much.

Fringed Flowers for Quilling

Last year I created a letter E monogram for a dear friend. After all the positive feedback, I'm pleased to offer it on Etsy. This is a combination of my top two paper passions - quilling and die cutting, my worlds colliding.

The flowers blossom at varying stages just by the way you curve the paper petals. The colors shown here are done by hand using alcohol-based markers. The stamen, petals, and leaves are designed as one strip to allow for quick rolling / quilling.

Fringed quilling strips have traditionally been limited to 90˚ or 45˚ cuts, but with a digital die cutter, the sky is the limit. This collection of 4 flowers with rounded petals are combined with a scalloped edge heart tray to hold your bouquet. They are ideal for card making, gift wrapping, or decorating custom monograms or letters.

Quilled E Monogram with Fringed Flowers

So I made a monogram for a friend who is turning 40 and requested a no gift policy – well, I'll still be able to say "I didn't buy anything." I wanted to show the flowers bursting forth in different stages of bloom. The "moat" which corrals the quilled flowers ends up hiding the quilled base from most angles; tilting the blossoms on their sides doesn't hurt either. I designed each flower pattern and cut them digitally on the Silhouette.

I’ve just discovered Moxie Fab World through a reader’s post of an intricately quilled heart, by Sweet Spot Cards. MFW have weekly challenges in their side bar, and I was pleased to find the right stuff in my stash for their “Pretty Pastels Color Challenge for Color Inspiration for Card Makers Week in the Moxie Fab World“, shown below: