Using quilling shapes as stamps

It's interesting how the seeds of creative ideas are sown. As regular followers will know, I've been experimenting with placing quilled motifs on top of digitally 'quilled' backgrounds for my most recent card designs, and I've been delighted with the favourable comment I've been receiving! Heidi Bishop, a talented quilling friend of mine on Facebook, told me that the technique reminded her of work she had seen in the past where quilled shapes had been pressed into an ink pad and then used to create 'stamped' impressions for a quilling background. This idea intrigued me - I just had to give it a try!

Meanwhile, I have just been writing a feature for the Quill America newsletter about paper bead making, featuring the beautiful work of Licia Politis. Licia told me that she likes to embellish some of her beads by rolling them on a sticky glue pad and sprinkling them with embossing powder which then melts into a beautiful shiny finish after being 'blasted' with a heat gun.

Years ago, when I first starting crafting, I purchased embossing powders and a heat gun which I used to emboss images obtained from rubber stamps. It's been quite a while since any of this equipment saw the light of day, but today seemed like the right time to bring it out.

I wanted to experiment with the idea of dipping quilled shapes in glue and applying them to card like you would a stamp. So I made a vortex coil and two teardrops and had a go! After transferring the sticky pattern to the card, I sprinkled on my embossing powder, and switched on the heat gun - here's the result:

I thought this might make a good basis for a 'Congratulations' card which is a category in demand right now that school exam results are out.

I printed the background with a digitally-produced layout of stars, did the embossing as described, and then created a few 'twisted' huskings to place on the top, producing a sort of 'champagne cork/fireworks' effect.

So this card combines digital art, stamping/embossing and quilling all in one - and another new idea is born!