Quilling for Scrapbooks and Photo Albums

Quilling in Scrapbooks and Photo Albums

I am not the scrapbooking person in our family. That would be my daughter Christie, the one who manages my Ebay store, juggles a full time job, takes care of a husband and two dogs, and makes wonderful scrapbooks. A diehard Yankees fan, she did a great scrapbook to commemorate her first game at Yankee Stadium. What does this have to do with quilling? She used 1/8" navy blue quilling strips to PIN STRIPE the pages for her Yankee Scrapbook.

I, on the otherhand, have a thing about preserving our family history and passing it on to my kids. Between my husband and myself we have five children, all grown. I started keeping family photo albums years ago, you know, take the pictures and then stick them in one of those '"sticky page" things they used to call photo albums. Then a distant relative passed away and when we started going through "stuff", there were all of these pictures with no names or explanations. That's when I decided to redo the family photos. Now they look more like a family story book, with funny little annecdotes about how and when we got the dogs, graduations, weddings,silly pictures etc. After seeing my daughter's scrapbooks, I decided to dress up my photo albums as well. I use quilling strips to border most of my pages, sometimes combining different widths, sometime using border punches on the wider strips. I always have just the right colors to go with all of my pages because the strips come in so many colors. They may not have an adhesive backing like some of the border strips sold in stores, but I use my fine tip glue bottle and I'm good to go.

Several years ago, I was asked to do a taping for the DIY network on quilling for scrapbooks. That really made me think about adding quilling to my own pages. Now, I have ten volumes of family photos, and trust me, there are a lot more quilling paper borders, than there is quilling, but little by little I am going back and adding a little quilled here and there. The albums all sit on a book shelf in our living room and everytime we are all together somebody pulls one out and starts reminiscing. I have put some of my favorite pages up in the picture gallery on my "new" web site http://www.Whimsiquills.com with little blurbs about each one.

It's kind of funny, there are quillers who don't even want to hear about scrapbooks (I think scrapbooking is a lot more expensive than quilling), and when the scrabooking craze first started there were people who said you couldn't use quilling because it wasn't flat. But as scrapbooking has evolved, and more and more dimensional embellishments are being added, the interest in quilling continues to grow. At Whimsiquills, we try to encourage that growth and carry a number of kits and books geared toward scrapbooking. I think the designs in the Accord quilling calendar are perfect for scrapbooking. Twenty years ago, the quillers worried that quilling might die out, today is seems to be alive and well becoming more main stream every day. Hooray!! That's just what we wanted, and the scrapbookers are helping.

Quilling Applications (Where do you put your quillling?)

Where do you put your quilling?

I thought, on the heels of my little blog about Megan Wilson, that maybe it was time to talk about some of the many applications quilling has. I think I may have mentioned that my first exposure to quilling was a quilled snowflake. Quilled snowflakes look so lacey and delicate and I still love to make them, hang them in my windows and give them as little gifts. But when I decided to sell my work, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to earn much selling such a small item. Over the years, I have done quilling around literally hundreds and hundreds of wedding invitations, anniversary announcements, poems and birth announcements. These became my “bread and butter” items; there was always a market for these occasions when people are looking for a very special gift. But there are so many other applications for quilling; I usually tell people the only thing that limits them is their own imagination! Here a just a few things that I have tried or seen others try.

I still have a quilled switch plate in the Whimsiquills room that is almost twenty years old. It is a fairly simple design on a wooden heart shaped switch plate that I bought in a craft store and painted to match the woodwork in the room.

I had quilling around a mirror mounted on a wood background with a towel bar underneath in my bathroom for years until just a couple of years ago when we remodeled the bathroom. We did knock a few of the quills off from time to time, but I just replaced them . . . it was kind of neat!
I designed and quilled a chess board to go with the chess men I made from a kit. Once I made the men, I felt they had to go with a quilled board. That design is available in Malinda Johnston’s Book of Paper Quilling on pages 105-106.

Dimensional or free standing quilling can be challenging but very exciting. Jinny Alexander’s Jinisans, my tea cups and saucer, and Christmas tree all pictured here on the blog are just a few examples.

Quilled greeting cards are very popular, especially when you look at the prices for greeting cards in card shops! Why not make a really special card with your personal touch? Several years ago (2003) I did some quilled eggs and Easter cards for Family Circle magazine at their request. They sent me some colored cards with oval cut outs etc. I got a bunch of calls asking where to buy those cards; Family Circle told me they had purchased them from a little boutique in New York. Now those kinds of cards are available in craft stores and on the internet Combine your quilling with rubber stamping, embossing, Pergamano (parchment craft), and embroidery to make some very unique greeting cards. I know others have done this as well, make a removable quilled Christmas ornament part of the greeting card. I make matching quilled gift tags to give to all of my customers with their orders.

One of my quilling friends, Rick Whitman, loves to do counted cross stitch. She will stitch an appropriate Bible verse, then mat it and quill on the mat and frame the whole thing for a very special gift item.

One of the more recent applications is the use of quilling in scrap books.
Quilled jewelry, I’ve made quilled pins, earrings and stick pins. There are a couple of kits and books with jewelry designs, and we are including quilled jewelry in the 2009 Accord quilling calendar. Of course the Quilling calendar (2008 now available) was a really unique application for quilling. The first calendar was done for 2007; each page has a quilling design, the directions are printed on the back of the page, and the strips are on the bottom of the page.

And last but not least we have the Megan Wilson application just in case you missed it! http://www.meganwilson.com/projects.php

I would love to hear what everyone else is doing, I’m sure I couldn’t have possibly covered everything. Share your ideas!

FYI there are two new posts on the Whimsiquills blog, one about a very interesting artist and another on the many applications of quilling. Also for those concerned about the 2007/2008 calendars I have put in a call to Accord publishing, but I really think the two calendars on the web are actually same calendar, the 2008; (even though one picture shows the 2007 box. I was told that the leftover 2007 calendars were destroyed which upset me more than a little.) The publisher has a suggested retail price ($14.99 for the 2008 calendar), but anyone selling them can charge whatever they choose. Mega calendar is just one of the distributors that Accord (Andrews McMeil) sells to. If I find out anything different, I will be sure to post to the groups.

Quilling is My Life!

Quilling is my Life!

Quilling is my life! What started out as a casual interest thirty years ago soon became an obsession. I would like to share my love of quilling, my work and experience with you. From the very first quilled snowflake I made, I have been fascinated by the endless possibilities of this beautiful art form. Over the years, I became more and more involved in the world of quilling. I was so excited about what I could do with paper that I made special gifts for my family and friends. Before too long, people were asking me to make things for their families and friends, and my business, Whimsiquills was born.

Quilling has been around for a long time, anecdotal information has it going back as far as the invention of paper. It was used by Italian nuns to decorate reliquaries centuries ago. When gilded paper is used (gold on the edges), it is often mistaken for metal filigree. It is not a very well known art form and is known by several names including paper mosaic, paper filigree, quilling and paper quilling (It is believed that some early quillers rolled their paper strips around the base of a goose quill). The astounding thing about quilling is its many applications, and because it is not very well known, people often don’t realize that they are looking at paper. I have had people who didn’t believe what they were looking at was made of paper until I showed them how I do it.

It was probably sometime late in the 80’s that the independent craft stores and Mom & Pop craft stores started disappearing as the big craft store chains started moving in. Most of these chains didn’t carry quilling supplies, and most of their employees had no idea what quilling was; this is still the case today. When I couldn’t find quilling supplies in stores anymore, I contacted the few quilling wholesalers here in the United States and started buying (and eventually selling quilling supplies); my interest at that time was more about meeting my own quilling needs and those of my students.

I learned that there was actually a quilling Guild in England I joined the guild and in my membership information, I found 13 other quillers here in the USA who were members of the guild as well. I contacted all thirteen and started writing a little “newsletter” so we could share information. When I read about quilling companies in England that had all kinds of specialty papers and colors that were not available here in the states, I started importing them as well. The story continues to grow. The little newsletter I wrote became Quill America, which is now the official newsletter of NAQG, the North American Quilling Guild. I don’t write it any more, thank goodness, NAQG has a wonderful newsletter editor for that. Our little informal group of thirteen quillers has grown to almost 500 NAQG members. We hold annual national meeting (NAQGCON) and many of our members hold regional “mini meets” where quillers get together to share information and technique. Our mission is to preserve this beautiful art form we love so well and pass it on to future generations.

The internet has played a large role in allowing us to share information with other quillers all over the world. There are many web sites where you can view peoples work, there are chat groups and email groups. We scan and email pictures of our work and can see the work of quillers from all around the world. The very first time I did a search on the internet, I found about 15 references, and some of those were about Native American quill work which is done with porcupine quills and totally unrelated to paper quilling. (It is very beautiful though). This morning when I typed the search word quilling 457,000 entries came up. So why am I “bloging” about quilling? Because I have so much information to share, and thought I would put it all in one place where it would be accessible to anyone who was interested. My plan is to give you information about where you can find antique quilling, (and not so antique), answers to frequently asked questions we get here at Whimsiquills, information on what is available, technique and anything else I think or hear you may be interested. Welcome to the wonderful world of quilling!