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.
A quick Hanukkah post today. For the second time in a row, our Hanukkah Menorah (or Hanukiah) made of recycled materials won first prize in the school contest. That was a big challenge to our craft skills. How many new craft ideas can you come up with, really? This year we made our Hanukiah of round cheese containers and old compact discs we had been collecting for almost two years. The cardboard containers were assembled together to build the body of the Hanukiah, which was then painted dark brown to make a good uniform backdrop for the brightly colored decoration.
Dear readers! First off, I would like to thank you for all those emails of appreciation and encouragement I receive from you, as well as your comments on this blog. I read them all, without exception. And I value them a lot! Unfortunately, I not always have time to reply, so I want to apologize, too.
Now it's time to keep my promise (see Thermometers decorated with quilling) and show you two other thermometers.
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 :(
This post is about this year's costumes I prepared for my girls. I know, it's too late for Purim and too early for Halloween, but I decided to show them now anyway. My elder daughter wanted to dress up as an owl, and I thought of the idea of a quilled mask right away. The mask is built on a cardboard base. First, I made the inner rim of the eyes using yellow and black strips 1/8 inches wide (about 3 mm). Then I cut wide brown and beige paper strips and used the fringed flowers technique to create the "feathers" around the eyes. When they were ready, I cut the rest of the brown and beige paper into 1/8"-wide strips (3 mm), used them to roll "eye" shapes, and glued the shapes onto the base, at the sides of the mask. The beak is made of plain and corrugated, 1/4"-wide (6 mm) brown strips. A brown skirt and a sweater with simple wings attached to the arms complete the costume.
You are probably familiar with this quilled dragon I made with my children on last summer vacation. This is Toothless the Night Fury from "How to Train Your Dragon". My kids like the movie very much, so we decided to create together this lovely character. Quilling strips of black, bright-green and red colors were used for the project, all of them 1/8" wide (3 mm). We also used pieces of black paper for the wings. The wingspan of the dragon is about 4 3/8 inches (or 11 cm). Isn't he cute?
Like every year, my children are participating in the school contest of Hanukkah Menorahs made using recycled materials. Last year we made a Hanukiah of discarded plastic egg-shaped containers, this year it was decided to create a large one of cardboard.
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).
My children love quilling just like I do, and I keep saying this craft is suitable for kids. Here's just one example. Some time ago my eldest daughter who is 8 years old created this blue dragonfly. She saw me making the flower with curled petals, and wanted to use the same technique for dragonfly's wings. She used the standard 1/8"-wide quilling strips (hand-cut). The dragonfly measures about 2 3/8" (6 cm) in length, 2 1/8" (5.5 cm) wingspan.
Those of you who are going to try quilling with children might like the article Paper quilling for kids: 10 tips I wrote earlier. Links to other examples of quilled insect designs can be found in this round-up post: Insects — quilling designs.
By the way, when I say "my children" that means also two 6-year-olds, including a boy :)
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.
Very soon, at the beginning of December, Jewish people around the world will be celebrating the holiday of Hanukkah. Candles, Hanukiyot (Hanukkah Menorahs / Hanukkah lamps), doughnuts and dreidels (spinning tops) are being sold everywhere in Israel.
I made this quilled jewelry for my daughters, thought I would share this idea on the blog. I hope the mothers of little girls out there will like it :)
Roll a ring using an approx. 1/4"(6mm)-wide paper strip, about 5"(12.5cm) in length. Fit the diameter to the finger of you little princess. Then fold a small rose using a strip of the same width and glue it onto the ring. A tutorial on how to make a folded rose can be found on Ann Martin's blog. Enjoy!
This image is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
I'm inviting you to download complete instructions for making a quilled lion (2.5 MB).
Some time ago I stopped throwing away toilet paper rolls, because they can be used in a variety of craft projects. This toy rocket is another example of such easy and eco-friendly kids crafts.
Hanukkah is coming, and I'd like to suggest this simple craft idea. A Hanukkah-themed lantern can be made with kids, it doesn't require special skills or materials and lets you recycle things you would otherwise throw away.
I'm happy to have an opportunity to "blend" my two favorite subjects — children's crafts and quilling — in one post. Today I'm giving some tips for kids' quilling, based on my personal experience.
But before you read on, you may want to check out the basic quilling instructions.
Doing quilling helps in developing fine motor skills, creativity, patience, and diligence. But most importantly, it's just another way to have fun with your kids! So, here are my observations and recommendations.
Many of my readers celebrate Halloween, so I thought I'd post something related. Do you like these cute witch and wizard? They can be made out of paper withing a very short time. Actually, you can make any figure following the same principal: create a paper cone, cut out and attach arms and hands, then just decorate and add attributes and accessories. For the wizards it's a magical wizard hat and Turkish shoes, for the witch it's also a broomstick. Got it? Well, I'll try to make some order:
Isn't this an excellent way to learn! Kids have fun making letters and numbers and then... eating them.
The book "Nature Printing
The kaleidoscope is one of those toys that make me nostalgic for my childhood. Today, just before children go back to school, I'd like to show how to make a homemade kaleidoscope toy. On the photo above you can see samples of what's seen through the kaleidoscope I've built with my kids. Each pattern is enclosed in a black circle because of the way I photographed them. In reality though, you should see continuous patterns throughout the field of view.
