Passiflora - Quilling and Paper sculpture

Passiflora or passionflower is a fast-growing perennial vine with climbing or trailing stems and large, intricate flowers. Passiflora grows in Israel, and it's blooming right now, so I can admire its flowers personally.

Poppies and dandelion. Framed quilling

It's November. The weather gets bitterly cold when the fall season, with its gold palette of colors, is turning into winter. But I want to bring you a piece of hot summer with its green leaves, red poppies, yellow dandelions and bumblebees.

Quilling: Illuminated Capital "L"

I was recently asked to make a quilled letter for a birthday present. Something not very complex and not too large so that could fit on a desktop. The present was meant for a person whose first name started with "L". This is how my first illuminated quilled letter was created.

Book: Pretty Quilled Cards

When I saw Cecelia's quilling work the first time a few years ago, I was stunned by its delicacy. It is amazing what she can do using a very limited number of airy curls. Her quilling is not just the traditional paper filigree we all are used to. It is particularly fine, intricate, expressive, and I would say "laconic". It is different. You can always recognize Cecelia's style when you come across a photograph of a piece made by her artistic hand. I have been wondering how she does it.

Calendars decorated with quilling

With the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) being celebrated this week, and the New Year of the Gregorian calendar about three months away, I thought it would be a good idea to share my quilling-decorated calendars. A beautifully embellished, handmade, one-of-a-kind calendar can be a wonderful present for just anybody, and is relatively easy to make. You can start with a printed calendar and add quilling to it, or find calendars to print on the internet.

"Love Quilling" Donating to Japan

Love quilling? Want to help Japan to recover from the 2011 earthquake? Then the charity activity called "Love Quilling" is for you. All you need to do is make little quilled flowers, as many as you can, and send them to Japan. For details please contact Motoko Nakatani on Facebook.

Tent cards with quilling

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.

"Thank you" and bell-flowers quilling cards

I count myself fortunate that all of my friends and family members like and appreciate quilled greeting cards I create for them (or at least say so :). Let me show you some of the most recent ones, a "Thank you" card and a card with pink bell-flowers.

Simple framed quilling with daisies and a bumblebee

I made this quick and simple quilling picture with daisies and fluffy orange flowers for a gift. The innovation here is that the bumblebee is fluffy, too, unlike all my other quilled bumblebees. I made it using the fringed flowers technique of black, white, and yellow paper strips 1/4 inches wide (~7 mm) and 6 inches long (~15 cm) each. This lengths corresponds to half the length of a 12"-long quilling strip or an A4 paper sheet.

Cards for promoting quilling in Israel

I'm happy to share with my readers great news. First, I have begun teaching quilling workshops. I have also started a blog in Hebrew which is called הקסם של קווילינג ("The Magic of Quilling"). I really hope that the two facts will help promoting the art of quilling in my country.

Mazal Tov quilling card

Some time ago I created this simple greeting card with paper quilling. The lettering says "Mazal Tov" (מזל טוב) or "Congratulations!" in Hebrew, I used letter stickers for it. The base was made out of thick watercolor paper.

Quilled flower arrangement in orange

This flower arrangement in shades of orange was inspired by the flowers of lily, mum (Chrysanthemum), rose, pot marigold (Calendula) and flame vine (Pyrostegia/Bignonia Venusta).

Lilac flowers and butterfly, framed paper quilling

This quilling picture was a present for my mom's birthday a few months back. I had been planning to create a picture that would feature lilac flowers for a long time, and even started making a stock of them — you need a lot for a project like this. Eventually I had a chance to complete this project. I love lilacs very much, they are so beautiful, and the scent is lovely. Unfortunately, lilacs don't grow in Israel.

Quilling: Flower arrangement in beige

Recently I've created this relatively simple flower arrangement, as a gift. It's almost monochromatic, in tints of brown and beige. For this project I used a new technique — the one the large curled petals were made with.

Cherry blossom, framed paper quilling art

I was writing this post when the news came about the tragedy in Japan. Like many other's, my thoughts, heart and prayers are with the people of Japan. For those looking for ways to donate to support the disaster relief efforts, here are a few links:

• Japanese Red Cross (via Google)
• American Red Cross
• British Red Cross

Simple quilled flowers in a beveled frame

I created this simple arrangement of quilled flowers with daisies and cornflowers as a gift. I used 1/8"-wide strips for the leaves and petals, and 3/8" strips for the fringed flowers and flower centers. The fringe is very dense. I always try to put some quilled insect as a point of interest in my flower arrangements. This work isn't an exception — you can see a tiny green bug climbing the flowers.

To frame this picture I built a beveled paper frame using 140lb (300gsm) card stock, tinted with acrylic paint. Step-by-step for a frame like this can be found in "How to make a beveled picture frame out of paper". Size of the finished picture is about 10 1/8 x 7 1/4 inches (25.8 x 18.5 cm).

Paper Sculpture - 3D Quilled Nuphar Flowers

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.

Quilled lotus flower

I finished this quilled lotus flower last fall, almost right after the Sacred lotus seedpod sculpture. I'm fascinated with this marvelous flower, so it's only natural that I often feature it in my art works.

Miniature quilled bouquet

This time I'd like to show a simple piece, which is a tiny bouquet of quilled flowers — roses, daisies and fronds. Stems of the roses were made of pieces of wire wrapped in dark green paper, the same paper was used also for the miniature leaves. For the stem of each daisy I used two pieces of 1/16-inch wide (1.5 mm) paper strips glued together lengthwise. The leaves and fronds were made using narrow 1/16-inch wide strips, too. The vase was easy to make by employing the basic techniques of three-dimensional quilling. I put a small piece of polystyrene foam into the vase so that to thrust the roses into it. Some of the leaves and fronds are attached directly to the vase. Size from the bottom to the top edge of the roses is about 2 1/2 inches (6 cm). In the photo the bouquet is seen compared to a Plumeria flower.

Useful tutorials: How to make fringed flowers (for daisies), and Folded rose tutorial.

Flower basket quilling picture

I started making this flower basket last winter. Since it turned out extremely time-consuming, I had to make a break at some point, then resumed working on it, and eventually got enough time to finish it. For this project I used hand-cut 1/8-inch wide (3 mm) paper strips. The basket is made of white strips with gilded edges created using a metallic gold marker.