Think Spring!

 I don’t know about you, but I am SO done with this winter . . .  so I am thinking butterflies. I like to make realistc looking butterflies. I don’t use a pattern for those, I just look at the pictures in the Audubon book and try to duplicate the look with quilling,, but I also make “fun’ butterflies.

This is a very simple quilled butterfly made with ring coils. You can make a ring coil by wrapping a strip several times around anything round (ballpoint pen, the handle of a wooden spoon etc.) or you can use one of the many quilling templates  available. There is also a cute little item called a circle sizer which serves the same purpose as a template (it’s just smaller.) Once you’ve made your ring coils, pinch them into the shapes you want for the wings. Make a 6” marquis for the body, a 11/2” tight roll (squeezed into an oval shape) for the head, and a 2” open heart for the antenna. I used a new Fiskars butterfly border punch  on the card and glued the little “fall” butterflies around the ring coil butterfly. On the inside of the card I glued a strip of 1/8” quilling paper and a wider strip of colored paper which I also punched. 

The next card is made using a different technique. It is called alternate side looping. I used three strips for the wing and back half of the butterfly. The body is a 6” marquise. The head is a 1 ½” tight roll. The antenna is a 1” strip folded in half and both ends curled in the same direction. The daisy has a 3” tight roll for a center, flattened into an oval. The Petals are 6” teardrops. The stem is just a 2” strip finger curled with 3’ open coils on either side. Enjoy!