Tool Lending Program

September is here, the schools are open and soon scout, church, and after school programs will be in full swing. I have written about the Whimsiquills tool lending program before, but felt it was worth repeating. We offer teachers an opportunity to teach their students quilling at minimal expense. All they have to do is contact us (by phone, fax, or email) and we will be happy to sign them up for the tool lending program. Most of these groups have a very limited budget (if any at all), so we send them the tools they need for their class at no charge, along with some other goodies like mat blanks, bookmarks, whatever we have on hand. They tell us how many tools they need and we will send them out; when they are finished with the tools, they return them to us so we can send them on to another group. If any of their students decide they want to keep on quilling, they have the option to keep the tool at a discounted price. They can download and print shape charts, instructions/refence materials, and patterns right from our web site http://www.whimsiquills.com/ at no charge; they will get a 10% teacher discount on any supplies they purchase for classes. If you have never taught quilling before there are a number of blog posts to help you get started.

We often send out some bookmarks that can be used for the first class. Here is a design using a few of the basic shapes that would be easy to complete in a first class. I dressed this bookmark up a little by gluing a ½” wide strip of quilling paper up the center of the bookmark and then glued a punched border on both sides of the strip; they set off the quilling nicely.(In the interest of time constraints, I often prepare the punched strips ahead of time) I used 1 ½” strips to make the teardrop petals, tight circles for the flower centers, and for the ring coils (the red flower petals.) I used 3” strips to make the open S-Scrolls. There are lots of seasonal patterns that would be appropriate for gift tags or cards which would also work for a first class. Another option is just to teach the basic shapes and let the students decide what they are going to put on their bookmark or card.

I spoke last week with a teacher who has introduced her students to quilling through this program. She started with ten students, all of whom are have a great time quilling; she just ordered another 16 tools. Hopefully, there will be a whole new group of quillers coming up to keep quilling around for generations to come. That is the goal of this quilling senior citizen.