Quilled Card Making Techniques Continued

Quilled Card Making Techniques Continued

I’ve toyed with the idea of trying some other techniques with my quilled cards. The first technique I tried was paper pricking (piercing). That’s when you prick out a design on the card with a pin (or a special pricking tool). The design can be pierced from the front or the back of the card or a combination of both. It’s really quite pretty and combines well with quilling especially if you use the pierced design as a border. I felt it was way too time consuming to use on a card; I used the technique to make some very pretty background piercing on handmade paper (which I bought, I did not make it). Then I quilled bouquets of flowers which I put on the background and framed. I have since discovered (well I didn’t really discover it, but I found out about it) a tool called the pounce wheel. This wonderful little gizmo will do a pricked border in a jiffy! You can’t use it for everything, although I did do a very nice scalloped border, but I use it to give a pricked edge on some of the papers I use for my cards.

I also bought a book on parchment craft . . . and parchment . . . and tools. However after sitting down and looking at the book, I decided I was not ready for parchment. It seemed very involved and rather complicated. What I have found though, is a book called The All New Compendium of Cardmaking Techniques by Search Press. It came up when I was doing a search for new quilling books. It has a 27 page section on quilling; the designs are some of the ones found in Diane Crane’s Quilled Greeting Cards. What it does have is very basic information for a number of other techniques. “Thread Cards” their term for paper embroidery is just one of them. While I might not want to make a whole thread card, that might be an interesting technique to use for the vase of quilled flowers. I always have to think about what design to use for a vase; making a “threaded vase” might give a whole different look and texture to a piece. It would be pretty small if I were making it for a card but might look pretty neat in a framed piece as well. Hmm . . . There is a section on watercolor cards, which I almost skipped right over . . . I don’t enjoy painting anything, furniture, walls, NOTHING! But . . . there is an interesting section on creating a wash for a background and getting some really neat looks using spattering and salt, of all things! The “Quick Parchment Cards” section has made me rethink the whole parchment thing, especially when I saw some of the border designs and saw it used on color cards. When I got to the silk flower section, I just substituted quilled flowers in my mind. The section on beaded cards combined paper pricking and lace. I am not trying to read the whole book to you but it does have some good basic information so if you are interested in trying any of these techniques, I think it is a pretty good starting point. I have a whole bunch of small quilled pieces that I had made for the 2009 Accord calendar and of course that project got scrapped. So I think I will take a look at them again and look through my books and maybe I can really dress them up. I don’t usually send cards out for Halloween, but some of the designs are really cute Halloween designs, so maybe I will just surprise my family with Halloween cards this year.

Quilled Greeting Cards & More

Quilled Greeting Cards & More

Handmade greeting cards have been very popular "across the pond" in England for a long time, and now they seem to be growing in popularity here in the United States. Let's face it . . . the cost of cards, like everything else, continues to rise. With gas prices out of site, and in a few months, those of us who live in colder climates will be dealing with the outrageous cost of heating oil, I don't think there is going to be a lot of extra money for $5-7 greeting cards or much of anything extra. In my last post, I wrote a little about quilled greeting cards; I thought it would be a good idea to expand on the topic.

I have just received an advanced copy of Alli Bartkowski's new book 50 Nifty Quilled Cards. I don't know about you, but I always enjoy looking through books because they stimulate me and give me ideas about what I would like to try. Coming up with ideas for fifty cards can't be easy, but Alli managed to do it. The quilling is relatively simple, but is dressed up by stacking different papers together to make the background for the quilling. For example: one of her cards used embossed vellum over plain card stock, a pearl on each of the 4 corners and a ribbon tied around the whole thing. Where was the quilling? A circle was cut out of the vellum with the cardstock showing through. Alli made two tiny birds (using a shaped teardrop for the head, and a larger shaped teardrop for the body) that look like they are "kissing" beak to beak; and above them two tiny teardrops make a heart. It's adorable! And easy! She has also added things like bits of ribbon, decorative embellishments like buttons and charms, decorative papers and gems. There are cards for holidays (I love her tiny angels) and for any occasion you can think of. It's a fun book and should be available in September.

Another fun book about card making is Marie Browning's New Concepts in Paper Quilling. In this book Browning actually shows you how to make the card blanks, liners, and envelopes. I generally stick with the card blanks we sell, we have white cards with rectangular, oval or heart shaped windows; we now have color cards and envelopes which are fun to work with as well. When using the window cards, I usually use a contrasting paper behind the cutouts and then place my quilling inside the cutouts.. I enjoy making cards using various border punches and quilling strips, but am intrigued by some of the ideas in this book as well. I like the look of the cards when different papers are stacked or layered. The cards in this book are quite elaborate although the quilling itself is not too difficult. The theme for the card is also carried over to the envelope which is another nice touch to the cards in this book. Some of these cards are almost too pretty to be cards and would certainly be appropriate for framing.

Of course, you might not want to send quilled cards to everyone on your greeting card list, so in my next post I will be discussing some other ideas for handmade cards. Then again, you might have people on your card list who wouldn't appreciate a handmade card. When I taught a workshop on dressing up your quilled cards at North American Quilling Guild Conference in Rhode Island, we had quite a discussion about who should get the fruits of our labor. One of the quillers said she would never send her sister a quilled card because she knew it would just get tossed; other quillers agreed that that sister didn't deserve a handmade card. I made my mother a set of quilled note cards several years ago because she always enjoyed getting my notes. When I visit her, they are still sitting on her desk, she wouldn't dream of writing on them and sending them off to someone else. I guess Moms are just like that. Here are a few other books to look at when making cards with quilling: Whimsiquills Book Review PageB171 Greeting Card DesignsB173 Quilling for Scrapbooks & CardsB5988 Quilling for CardsB352554 Card Making Techniques

Quilling Greeting Cards

Quilling Greeting Cards

I’ve decided not to buy greeting cards anymore. I’ve decided to make them . . . for a lot of different reasons. First of all I find it very difficult to find a card that says exactly what I want it to. For example: I didn’t actually meet my biological father until I was fifty five years old. He left to go off to the war when I was just a few days old. When he came back, both he and my mother were very different people and their marriage became a casualty of war. When I “found” him, I learned that I have a brother! Hallmark just doesn’t have a card that says what I need it to. I can spend hours, literally, reading through every card on the rack and then either leave empty handed or settle for something I’m not really pleased with. It didn’t really leave me much choice. Then of course there is the cost! It seems the only cards that appeal to me are the ones that cost megabucks.

Since I am a quiller, I would occasionally quill a card for a special occasion, (I always quill gift cards), and then worry about it getting squashed in the mail. Of course we all know how time consuming quilling can be, so I began to look for ways to “dress up” my quilled cards, to make them really pretty without having a lot of elaborate time consuming quilling. I started paying a little more attention to card making and scrapbooking books. Well, my worries are over; as card making grows in popularity here in the United States there is more and more information and ideas at your fingertips. We carry several books here at Whimsiquills specifically geared toward card making. My first cards were on plain white cardstock, and then I started trimming the edges of the cards with fancy edged quilling strips in matching colors. (I would cut the wide quilling strips with those decorative edge scissors.) Then I moved on to some tri-fold cards with decorative cut outs like hearts, ovals, and rectangles. I liked the openings because they “framed” the quilling, I would use a contrasting color as the background in the opening.

My daughter, who is into scrapbooking, told me about the decorative borders she used in scrapbooking, so I started looking at borders and border punches; it was just a logical progression to start using some of these ideas in my cards. Since I was enjoying using these, I decided to include them in the Whimsiquills line. Funny how things happen. One of my suppliers, Paplin Products, asked if I would be interested in seeing some cardboard mailers . . . perfect for mailing quilled greeting cards! Of course I was interested! Then they asked me what I thought about a line of colored cards and envelopes. At first I wasn’t sure about how the quilling would look on the colored cards. But I remembered doing some Easter quilling for Family Circle magazine several years ago. The cards they sent were colored . . . I got a lot of calls about those colored cards. At the time, I checked with Family Circle and they told me they had bought the cards at a little boutique. Paplin sent me some samples and I really enjoyed working with them. I used some circle border punches to “frame” the quilling on some of them. Circle punch On others, I combined some of the border punches to dress up the cards. The small designs I had created for the Accord quilling calendars were perfect for the cards. Combined border punches. There are tons of samples on the cards and scrapbook link .

Of course after you make your pretty handmade card, you have to decide what you want it to say. There are some great sites on the internet like http://www.verses4cards.co.uk/ and http://quotegarden.com/ These are just a couple of sites, there are tons more out there. You can print out a verse in a pretty or fun font and attach it to the inside of your card. Of course if your handwriting is nice or if you know calligraphy you can write your verse. I use a removable adhesive called Dotto to attach the “verse” to the inside of the card. The verse can be removed and the card can be recycled! How about that!! You can have your own line of “green” cards, save gas by making them at home, save money by not buying the fancy commercial greeting cards, and your cards can be recycled!

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.