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.

Northern Hawk Owl - Quilling Easter Egg

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.

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.

Quilled Geisha - Japanese paper doll

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.

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.

Queen's Guard soldier - 3D quilling

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.

Birdcage Easter Egg - Quilling

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.

Penguin Easter Egg - Quilling

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.

Totoro Easter egg. Quilling

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.

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.

Quilled Mosquito

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.

Quilled ornaments inside a glass ball

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.

Quilled knee cross-sectional anatomy

Impressed with the work of Lisa Nilsson, I decided to try my hand at anatomical quilling, too. A few months ago my husband had a problem with his knee and I made ​​a small gift for his orthopedist — this quilled knee cross-section.

Paper quilling: Miniature squirrel

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.

Quilled Easter greeting cards

As the Easter is coming up, I would like to show two of my Easter cards with quilling. I often choose the Easter egg to be the main element of my cards, and these ones aren't an exception. The quilled egg on the first card is made of 1/8-inch-wide yellow, orange and red paper strips. In addition to the egg, I used a ribbon bow and the words "Happy Easter!" to decorate this greeting card. The lettering was done by hand using a red felt-tip pen. Size of this card is approximately 4.5" x 6" (12 x 15 cm).

On the second card the central quilled Easter egg is echoed by two simpler eggs on its sides. For this card I combined quilling with punches and paper cutting. The red and yellow paper strips in this case are 1/8" (3 mm) and 1/16" (1.5 mm) wide. Size of the card is approximately 4.5" x 6" (~11.5 x 15.5 cm).

Please, use these cards for inspiration only and do not reproduce them.

My other Easter projects:

• Quilled Easter egg with a surprise
• Quilled Easter egg
• Easter eggs & cards in my Etsy shop

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish my female readers a happy International Women's Day. Tons of health, success, love, peace, luck and happiness to you all!

Tutorial: How to make tendrils for paper quilling

In my quilling I often use tendrils (spirals). They are especially good for quilled tree trunks and branches, like in my Cherry blossom picture, for instance. They can be also used in cardmaking and scrapbooking for making intricate embellishments, like those on this Valentine's Day card or the pink Birthday greeting card. However, creating perfect tendrils for paper quilling is not as simple as it may look. Some of my readers asked me how I create tendrils for my quilling, so here we go, a tutorial on the subject :) In this short video I share my method of making tendrils using a needle tool and 1/16" & 1/8" strips. You can also use an awl, a thin knitting needle or even a toothpick. Don't be disappointed if you can't get it right right away, just keep practicing.

Room thermometers with paper quilling

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.

3D Quilled Animals - Lion

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 :(

Thermometers decorated with quilling

Today I would like to show you how a simple and ordinary object can be turned into a lovely gift — a wall thermometer like this one, for instance. I decorated it with a simple quilled pattern, and the only things I needed for this were a simple wooden room thermometer and a 12" x 12" (~30 x 30 cm) sheet of thick recycled paper.

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.