Inspired by the renowned Australian quiller Licia Politis and her wonderful paper beads, I've had a go at creating some jewellery using colourful paper sourced from glossy magazine pages.
Licia kindly shared with me the method of rolling up long triangular strips of paper to form a conical shape, and I had fun selecting suitable paper by looking out for full-page photographs and colourful advertisements in some larger than average size travel magazines.
You need quite a long strip of paper to make a decent-sized bead - the ones I used were all about 35 cm long. The method involves rolling the strip into a coil, fastening the end with glue and then pushing the middle out to form a sort of telescopic cone, which can then be strengthened using layers of PVA glue and clear varnish.
I managed to create hanging hooks for my earrings using loops of paper twine which I glued on to the wide end of each strip prior to rolling.
With Licia's help, I'm plannng to write a detailed feature about paper bead making for the Spring 2014 edition of the Quilling Guild's 'Quillers Today' magazine, of which I am now Editor. No doubt I'll be experimenting with plenty more designs along the way!
Thursday, 10 October 2013
Thursday, 3 October 2013
Quilled picture for Enid
Enid recently made some new curtains for her bedroom using a very attractive fabric that is boldly printed with leaves and flowers. We decided that the pattern would be eminently 'quillable' ... so she asked me to create a complementary quilled picture for the bedroom wall.
I took a piece of left-over fabric, scanned the individual elements of the pattern and re-arranged them on the computer using Photoshop to create a layout that I could quill.
For the large flowers, I made two different types of centre: one is a slightly domed solid coil in dark green, and the other is a punched-out disc of paper covered with teardrop shapes that have been glued in position on their edges. The petals are made using vortex coils, moulded into shape, with thin 'veins' of contrasting colours glued along their inner sides.
For the blue flowers, I made large white solid coils, covered them in tiny 'squished' coil crescent shapes in blue, then edged the solid coils with two layers of on-edge blue teardrops.
The greeny yellow globe flowers were made using punched discs of paper covered in crimped strip solid coils.
The golden leaves are made up from eye shapes, with contrasting strips glued along their inner edges to create veins.
The interlinking stems are cut from solidly glued ring coils moulded around shampoo bottles and other objects that produced the required degrees of curve.
I assembled all the pieces separately, using pins on a piece of clingfilm-covered mounting board. Then the whole piece was assembled on a 12" x 10" backing sheet to fit within the recessed frame.
I'm very pleased to report that Enid loved it!!
I took a piece of left-over fabric, scanned the individual elements of the pattern and re-arranged them on the computer using Photoshop to create a layout that I could quill.
For the large flowers, I made two different types of centre: one is a slightly domed solid coil in dark green, and the other is a punched-out disc of paper covered with teardrop shapes that have been glued in position on their edges. The petals are made using vortex coils, moulded into shape, with thin 'veins' of contrasting colours glued along their inner sides.
For the blue flowers, I made large white solid coils, covered them in tiny 'squished' coil crescent shapes in blue, then edged the solid coils with two layers of on-edge blue teardrops.
The greeny yellow globe flowers were made using punched discs of paper covered in crimped strip solid coils.
The golden leaves are made up from eye shapes, with contrasting strips glued along their inner edges to create veins.
The interlinking stems are cut from solidly glued ring coils moulded around shampoo bottles and other objects that produced the required degrees of curve.
I assembled all the pieces separately, using pins on a piece of clingfilm-covered mounting board. Then the whole piece was assembled on a 12" x 10" backing sheet to fit within the recessed frame.
I'm very pleased to report that Enid loved it!!
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