Quaint Quilling

Have you heard of quilling? It’s been around for hundreds of years and used to be the pastime of genteel ladies during the Georgian and Victorian times and was also practised by nuns and monks to decorate religious artefacts.  Modern papers and adhesives have changed the work produced but the techniques are based on old ideas.

My book showed some Charles Rennie Mackintosh style roses and they looked to be the easiest of the Closed Loose Coils, since they started with a fold rather than rolling.  I glued a strip of pale and dark pink together at the end and started the folding.

Once I’d got to the end, I released the tension and then glued the other ends in place to secure the rose shape.  I made several of these and some with darker pink strips.  The leaves were made using a different technique called Wheatear Coils.  As I haven’t done this before, I experimented with trying to make the leaves in different ways.  The flowers didn’t seem to sit well by themselves so I used some purple strips to make a vase type structure.

After the individual quilling was complete, I set to work on the arrangement and glued them in place after stamping the sentiment.  Three of the roses were glued on top of the arrangement to give a more 3D effect.

To finish, I added a few tiny heart embellishments and mounted on a green mat and pink card base to compliment the floral arrangment.

As usual, I made two cards, one each for the two mums in my life: my Mum and my Mum-in-Law. One of the best things about handmade cards is that no two are identical - they're the same but different!