Daisy chain!

Punch art card with just a little quilling, a photo by Philippa Reid on Flickr.

The idea of creating a lattice of punched shapes over an aperture cut in the front of a card was shared at a craft workshop that I attended last week ... and I just had to have a go!

I cut a rectangular aperture in the front of this card, and then used a daisy-shaped punch to cut an array of flowers out of variously patterned papers. Some of the daisies are punched from the blue/white security patterns that you find printed on the inside of business envelopes; the rest are from colourful patterns that I have printed out using my extensive collection of digital images! I'm sure that any pre-printed patterned paper would work equally well.

By gluing one flower on to the the card at each corner of the aperture, and then attaching others across the open space using tiny dots of glue at the adjoining tips of their petals, I was able to create a colourful lattice effect of my own. As you can see, I also added a punched-out swirl and tiny dragonfly on the face of the card for good measure!

The centres of the flowers were made by quilling closed loose coils using inch-long (25mm) strips of 3mm wide yellow paper, which I glued on to each daisy. Somehow, the addition of these really brought the whole design to life!

I'm pleased with this card, even though there isn't much quilling in it. All the different colours seem to create a lovely summery effect, reflecting the wonderful weather we're enjoying here in the UK right now. Long may it last!!