Syd is generally to be relied upon as my crafting buddy. Along with watching cooking videos on YouTube, it's about our favorite way to spend time together. Whenever a publicist sends me a crafting book, she's right in there with me, checking it out and then trying it out and seeing what we can make of it.
Our most recent score is The Art of Modern Quilling. This is the first time that Syd or I have ever tried anything to do with quilling, and it turns out that we're both super into it!
The book has instructions for making all the different quilling shapes, and they're all fairly easy to do, and much, much, MUCH easier after I figured out how to DIY a quilling tool from a coffee stirrer:
After that, making all the shapes was a piece of cake for both of us!
Can you find Syd's original quilling shape invention in here?
Syd most enjoyed the process-oriented activity of making all the quilling shapes, and we ended up with quite a collection that we can use for future projects:
I have some old Mason jar lid rings hanging around, left over from Syd's Christmas ornament project last December. I realized that if I cut the quilling strips to be 1/2" wide instead of 1/4", they would perfectly match the width of a Mason jar lid ring, so I used the lid ring as a form to make a project:
I filled the space with the main design that I wanted (I experimented with quilling old sheet music, and it looks okay as the background, but you can't, of course, see the notes. I'm very curious to try quilling color-saturated magazine pages next!), and then pressed in other quilled shapes until tension held the entire thing in the Mason jar lid ring.
To actually secure it, I brushed glue under the edge of the Mason jar lid ring as I was coating the entire piece with several coats of Mod Podge to seal it:
I really wanted to use polyurethane, but I can't find it in the house, and at -14 degrees outside, it would take a far more important reason than simply desiring my preferred sealant to make me go outside and dig around for it in the garage.
Not to mention that I suspect I'll be pissed when I find it, because I store my paints in the closet inside so that they WON'T get frozen, and if the polyurethane is in the garage then not only did someone borrow it without asking and not put it away properly, but also it's probably ruined. Because it's -14 degrees outside. And that stuff is expensive.
So Mod Podge and a peaceable mood it is!
It's awesome to have another crafting skill in the toolbox, and I'm looking forward to seeing what future projects quilling lends itself to. I mean, cardmaking is a given, but I have a couple of flat picture frames that I thrifted but haven't refinished yet, and I'm toying with the idea that quilling on top of the frame would look really cool. Syd embellished a couple of very elaborate headbands recently using polymer clay; wouldn't quilled pieces, sealed very well (I sure wish that polyurethane was on my closet shelf where it's supposed to be right now!), be just as pretty?
Stay tuned!
P.S. Syd and I are always making something weird. Want to follow along and see what else we're working on? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!
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