Quilling in squares

Following my friends' blogs and browsing on Flickr recently, I've noticed several card designs which use a group of little square panels as backgrounds for individual quilled motifs. I like them! So I thought I'd have a go at producing some of my own:

Of course, I couldn't resist introducing some photographs into the second one!

Also this morning, I received a nice order for a batch of cards featuring dragonflies, so I've been busy quilling their wings and bodies ready for mounting on these cards:

So it's been a happy quilling day!

Quilled goldfish on another mystery background!

It looks like water ... but any guesses as to what this background photo is?

Quilled bug on a mystery background

I went to a charity coffee morning yesterday and sold a few cards. As I was there for several hours, I decided to take along a bit of quilling to do - and made this little bug, which I thought looked quite striking in plain black and white.

Today I mounted it on this card, thinking that it needed some really fresh and bright colours as a background. Can anyone guess what the background actually is?

Believe it or not, the colours come from a photo of wine bottles lying on shelves which have been mounted against a mirror in a restaurant, creating some fabulous reflections.

It's rose wine - can you see the bottles now?



The shot is quite 'pixilated' because I cropped it really small, but I love the effect. Hopefully, my little black and white bug appreciates it too!

Remember the blossom?

The blossom on our cherry tree looked stunning back in the spring, and here's the result - a bumper crop of cherries!

Hearts, flowers ... and a little quilling

Last night was almost a disaster for me. I attended a meeting of our village Women's Institute where I was fortunate enough to sell a few cards and also won a prize in the raffle. The prize I chose was a beautiful table decoration of fresh flowers which had been specially prepared for the meeting, and I could see that the colours in it would make a fabulous photograph - just perfect for me to use in some card designs.

Well, I collected it at the end of the evening,  put it in a bag with my card baskets ... and on the way home, water leaked from the arrangement all over half of my cards! What a panic - especially as I was due to take the cards to my regular market this morning! Fortunately, each card is securely wrapped in cellophane, so there was no lasting damage - but at eleven o'clock last night I had to check each one over and wipe it dry, ready for loading up in the basket again today.

Meanwhile, the flowers were rapidly wilting in the hot weather we are having. So I quickly took some photos before leaving for the market, and have used one of them this afternoon to make this card.

On my Apple Mac computer, it is easy to create circles, squares and ovals for my card designs, but unfortunately the menu of shapes in the program I use does not include a heart. So I had to create this one using two circles, and oval and a triangle overlapping. I pulled sections of my chosen photograph into the two circles and the triangle, leaving the central oval plain for the "With love" wording. Then all it needed was a little quilling!

Here's the original flower arrangement in all its glory:

I'm sure that I will soon be using it in some other card designs for quilling, as the colours are fantastic.

I hope you will agree that I chose well!

Quilled snails in our hostas

It's high summer here in England, and the hostas on our patio are in full flower.  I took these photographs this morning, and could not resist quilling some snails to make these cards!  Snails just LOVE eating hosta leaves!!

Quilled flowers in the fireplace

Staying in our friends' house last week, I collected some new photographic images to use as backgrounds for my quilling.

Their home is a lovely Victorian house which was built in the 19th century, and there is an elegant fireplace in every room.  It's hard for us to imagine now, but open coal fires would have been the only source of winter warmth at the time the house was built, long before the invention of domestic central heating! Of course, our friends have no need for the fireplaces now, but have retained them in the house for their architectural beauty. Rather than lying empty, each grate is filled with fir cones, foliage and flowers - a lovely decorative feature, with vibrant colours set against a black background where the fires would once have burned.

Well, I just had to take some pictures ... and these quilled cards are the result: