Easter is coming soon, and this year it is celebrated from Good Friday on March 30th, until Easter Monday on April 2nd - making Easter Sunday fall on April Fool's day. For this occasion, I would like to show you my new quilled Easter egg - a Northern Hawk Owl.
Hello my dear readers!
I haven't been writing to this blog for a long time, but I still do quilling and have creations to show. Today it will be a paper doll made out of original Japanese washi paper and quilling strips.
As you may know, I lived in Canada for a year, and this certainly influenced my creations. In Canada, you can see guard soldiers wearing a ceremonial red coat — a historic British military uniform, and a bearskin — a tall fur cap. That is because Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy at the same time, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. Traditionally, the bearskin was the headgear of grenadiers, and is still worn by grenadier and guards regiments in various armies. The outfit is really hard to miss, and I was inspired by Queen's Guard soldiers when I made this three-dimensional quilled miniature wearing a bearskin.
This year's last Easter egg is a birdcage. It is delicate, airy, intricate, and at the same time easy to make. This egg may look simple compared to the Emperor penguin or the super-complex egg with a surprise, but I like it no less than the others.
On an Easter note, I would like to show another quilled egg I made recently. This is an emperor penguin. Emperor penguins are the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and are endemic to Antarctica. In my opinion they are the most beautiful, too. Males and females are similar in plumage and size, so my penguin may be either a mom or a dad, whichever you like better :) And there's a surprise, too.
It's the end of March now, and with Easter around the corner — just the right time to begin making Easter eggs. Have you heard about a lost and found Faberge egg that was almost sold for scrap, by the way? Amazing story.
You must have already noticed my weakness for insects :-) I started thinking of making a mosquito out of paper when I was working on my praying mantis. I was in search of a gift idea at that time, focusing on insects for inspiration. Unlike the mantis, which have made a lovely gift for my art teacher, the mosquito stays with me. I'm somewhat reluctant to give it away.
November is a good time to start thinking Christmas. I'm living in Canada now, and my neighbors have already decorated their houses. I thought it would be nice to showcase some Christmas ornaments with quilling today.
Do you remember my 3-D quilled family of mice? They have the cone shape in their base, with some traditional 2-D shapes used for other elements. The same technique can be used to make various characters, including animals, fairies, etc. For example, something like this small squirrel I created some time ago.
Recently I came across my 3D quilled lion tutorial ripped off by a web site from a PDF (along with other tutorials), and shared on Pinterest. Can't help stumbling upon stolen images and tutorials here and there :( Anyways, I would like to remind that the tutorial is available in high resolution, with detailed instructions in English, and absolutely free of charge. It can be downloaded from the page Lion: 3D Quilling Project. Moreover, everybody is welcome to distribute the file or even host it on their website, legally.
Some thoughts for those of you who publish things on the Internet. In the past I released some quality content under a Creative Commons license, hoping to give people an opportunity to use it legally, while also benefiting from this myself a little bit. And here are my observations: for every legal use (if at all), I find tens of illegal ones, that is without even mentioning the source. It looks as though every image without a watermark just asks to be stolen. Sad :(
On my Facebook page I promised to write a blog post dedicated to cards of a new, at least to me, type. So, here we go.
When I was making my first quilled egg, I wanted to build it so that it can be opened. Unfortunately, I faced some unexpected difficulties back then. So later I decided to make another Easter egg, and this time it came out just as I wanted. This is how my turquoise egg was created, and it can open! And now some details.
Let me show you today my new three-dimensional quilled creation. This is a model of a sailboat, or to be precise — the galleon "Golden Hind" . I started this project about a year ago, but couldn't finish it until recently.
When a colleague of my husband saw my blog, he asked if I could create miniature sheep figures for him. It turned out that he's an Agricola game fan. For this board game you need sheep among other things. Besides the game itself, its fans value handmade pieces for it. The animals have to be tiny, approximately 3/8" x 3/8" (1 x 1 cm) in size. Most of the Agricola animals found on the Web are made of polymer clay (FIMO, for instance).
I've always been fascinated by the quilled Easter eggs found on the Internet. It's now time for me to showcase my own eggs, this one is just the first of a series.
Today we celebrate the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, so I wanted to show a new Judaic item I've created. It's something completely different this time — a quilled Mezuzah case.
If you haven't watched the anime film My Neighbor Totoro, I highly recommend it. This is one of my kids' favorites, so I made a tiny Totoro toy with paper quilling.
Dear readers! First off, I would like to wish you a happy New Year! May the upcoming year be full of joy, good health, peace and creativity. I'd like also to apologize for not blogging, and not responding to emails and comments lately - I've been too busy with my classes.
To continue the subject of Hanukkah-themed recycling crafts I started in the previous post, I'm sharing another Hanukkah Menorah idea. This one is made of recycled paper using the paper quilling technique from 1/4"- and 3/8"-wide strips (0.5cm and 1cm). First I planned to paint it silver, but then decided to leave it as is. This Menorah is approximately 5 inches (12.5cm) in height, I think it may be called "Mega-quilling" compared to the miniature quilled Hanukkah Menoras I made last year.
Happy Hanukkah! חג אורים שמח
Nuphar lutea or Yellow water-lily is a genus of aquatic plants. It grows in ponds and slow-moving rivers, native to Eurasia and North America, but can be also found here in Israel. Nuphar blooms in spring and early summer.
