July 30, 2009

Quick & simple summer cards

Two ideas for simple cards for summertime, one with an ice-cream cone and the other with a chocolate mousse dessert. Actually, these are not cards but magnets. They are based on quilling patterns from one of my favorite quilling books, Twirled Paper: Make Almost Anything With Simple Paper Strips, which I recently wrote about. I used cheap children's colored paper for the quilling and background, and gold acrylic paint to decorate the cards with dots.

For a bit more complex summer card projects:

July 27, 2009

Dog-rose and butterflies, framed paper quilling

Quilled dog-rose with moth and butterfly

As I already wrote, Helen M. Stevens' Embroiderer's Countryside has been a great source of inspiration to me.

This dog-rose was also inspired by her stunning work. I had to figure out how to quill it, though. I had made the flowers with husking and the hips in three-dimensional quilling, but was still struggling the leaves. I tried traditional quilling shapes and husking, but ended up making simple paper leaves with veins.

July 24, 2009

Project: "Have a great vacation!" card with a quilled crab and sailboat

Another simple handmade card with elements of paper quilling (a step up from the summer card I showed). The quilled shapes require some experience in quilling (especially the crab, which is very tiny), so I can't say this is beginners level. I also tried to incorporate some embossing into this project.

July 22, 2009

Quilled dandelions and violets, framed work

My first quilled dandelions turned out so successful, that I was asked to make more of them for my friends. As I try not to use the same design twice, I added violets to the composition this time.

July 20, 2009

DIY: Homemade crimpers for quilling paper

Crimped strips can be used in paper quilling along with regular strips to add special effects and freshness to your projects. A crimper is a device that consists of two cogs, which a quilling strip is run through. The cogs must be wide enough to cover the width of a strip. A crimper can be purchased in one of quilling supplies shops, but for some of you (like for me) that's not possible. After looking for suitable cogs to make a DIY crimper for quilling strips, I've finally got it and wanted to share with you my solution.

July 18, 2009

Project: Summer card with a quilled slice of orange

You know, I'm not too much into scrapbooking and cardmaking, but from time to time I create greeting cards for my friends and family. This one is a pretty simple paper card with elements of paper quilling. I wrote a short tutorial on making this card, hope beginners will found it useful.

July 17, 2009

Make a cardboard castle using discarded boxes and toilet paper rolls

There are many ways to build a castle with children. Once I already made a small cardboard toy castle with my kids, but this time we wanted something more impressive. For our castle we collected cardboard boxes of different size, and toilet paper tubes. Using those building blocks, paint and some colored paper, we created this castle with floors, round towers, windows and a cone-shaped roof.