Hello my friends!  We've gotten the first week of school behind us now and are settling into our routine.  I was able to get a lot of creative work done last week and that makes me feel good.  The card I'm sharing today is from a challenge I participated in on the Paper Craft Planet site.  Anything But Cute (or ABC) challenges have been great to participate in.  The most recent challenge was to create a round card.  Of course with Christmas looming the first thing I thought of was a wreath.

I used brown kraft paper for the base, but must admit I think it would have looked better if I had used white.  I used two shades of green to create the leaves.  The leaves were a bit of a challenge in themselves. I have fat stumpy fingers and some of the pieces are small, so getting six points on those little babies caused me to think a bit.  But I managed!  It was fastest to pinch the coil into a marquis, then taking my tweezers I held the middle and used my fingers to hold the pinched part and push in toward the tweezers thereby creating two more points.  Then I flipped it over and repeated.  The berries were easy enough using a tight coil and ever so slightly pushing up in the middle to give them a slight roundness.  The gold bow finishes it off.

I wanted to take a minute to share an article I read on another blog.  If you can, please check this out:

http://allthingspaper-annmartin.blogspot.com/     Ann's article on Pavlos was inspiring to me.  His work emphasizes my point that there are no rules to quilling.  You can bend that little strip of paper and make it come to life!  I just love the way he used the paper to create and it doesn't look like quilling, it looks more like painting or even that he used textiles.  I just found his work to be inspiring and hope that you do as well.

Best wishes to everyone!

Shelly

Back to a Routine!

Here in my area of Florida, we are back to school now, and hopefully, I will be able to get back into a routine soon as well.  I think I had too much off time this summer as I was keeping busy keeping the grand-baby busy!  But she's happily started the first grade and now I can turn my attention toward getting projects done!
The first card I've done this week is one I have titled "A Nest of Roses."  As you look you will see that it is created by allowing a large quilled circle to go awry.  Then I made yellow and white roses and stuck them all about the inside and outer edges.  I put a few short strips of browns down to create a tree branch look.  I added just a few leaves to give a spring time budding effect.  I like the paper I found for the background, as it gives the thought of being in the tree and having a great deal of sunlight peering through the other leaves in the tree.  It was a fun project.
I've also started in on a wreath card project that I think will be a lot of fun and perfect for the holidays.  More on it later!

 
So in addition to getting ready for the holidays, it's time to get ready for the colorful fall season.  And I've got a couple of ideas on that as well.  I just love fall colors!


So until next time, best wishes to all of you.

Shelly

Amuzeing Yet Humbling

I know I've been away for quite a while and I apologize.  I know everyone understands when day to day family life becomes more important than creating.  Although creating is often an escape from the day to day pressures, sometimes it just has to take the back seat to getting life in order.  So enough with the excuses!

I think it is truly marvelous how those who quill seek out one another.  Like so many other groups that band together and start sharing information and techniques - it helps us grow to share .  It always makes me smile when I get a compliment about a card or picture that I have quilled.  It humbles me when someone new thinks my work is beautiful while I look at the work others have done and strive to be as good as they are.

Because I'm self taught and haven't been quilling more than 7 or 8 months, I feel like a true amateur.  I spend hours creating shapes that don't do what my mind has in store for them.  I don't like doing the same picture over and over so if an idea doesn't work out after a few tries, well, I just give up.  Of course, sometimes I begin with an idea in my head and although it doesn't work out as I imagined, I end up with something even better.  But the point is that both amuses and humbles me that I can be so new and yet appreciated at the same time.  And I think that at this point in time, that is a very inspiring thought!

I haven't created anything different, but I did create one card to meet a lesson requirement.  It is done on a background of watercolor paper that I created.  I don't have paints, so I wet the paper and let the markers bleed on the paper.  Once it dried I was able to trim it to size and add my quilled pieces.  I used the same color strips as I did markers so that it all matched up.  I made it a friendship card with the stamped sentiment.  It turned out to be a very colorful card!

If you have a chance to do so, let me know about your beginning days of quilling.  Were you self taught or did someone show you the tips and tricks?  Do you have a favorite other person that inspires you or do you look around at nature for your inspiration?  At what point did you feel you were no longer an amateur?

Old or new at quilling, I hope you enjoy being creative and that you have a fantastic week!

Best wishes,

Shelly