Digital Letters Quilled Nameplate

This one is for one the nice guys - Chethan, who helped hubby during the handmade items sale as a thank you :)

Quilled Nameplate for our Anniversary

Here's a step by step of my latest quilled creation :) A nameplate of blue and yellow quilled letters and yes, it like a little jungle with lots of animals :)) And yup, I know it looks like it has been made for a kid :))

I kept to basic quilling shapes for filling up the letters and tried to find an animal for each letter, well at least as close as I could manage :) 

Step 1 : Create the letters. 

Step 2 :  I traced out the letters onto the canvas / card and stuck the quilling paper along the edge vertical (as opposed to flat on the card) 

Voila, all the letters done ! 

Step 3 : Make quilled animals for the letters ... This was the fun bit ! 

V for Wolf ( or Volf?  he he , close enough)  Didn't quill this one though. 

The filling in the V is with quilled cubes / squares with alternating blues, yellows and creams.

N For Neelu ( creative license in using the Telugu translation for Water here :) ) So, the quilled crab and quilled fish are the sea creatures. 

The N is filled with crimped quilling paper cut and stuck vertically. And since it was looking too blue, I put in some yellows free style ;) 

And O is for ....... the wise Owl !
Filled with double sided quilled loops.

D is for my cute little flame breathing Dragon. The dragon by the Fairy Card Maker was my inspiration to do this in the first place. Here's to my fantasy fiction, dragon fan hubby - Happy 50th Monthiversary Hubby !

Wolf Closeup

For my sea-side hometown hubby, Quilled Fish in water closeup

Quilled Loopy Crab and air bubbles in water closeup

Hoot hoot the Quilled Owl for my super smart Hubby

Quilled Dragon Closeup

And here it is all done !

:) It took quite a bit of time to make all those fillers and come up with the idea. Hope my hubby likes it :) 

My First Scrapbooking Attempt

I have seen so many amazing scrapbooking artists(crafter seems too little) out there that I have always wished I could try. The problem with scrapbooking is not the idea or the template, not even the colors , its always where can I get that beautiful pattern paper. Scrapbookers seem to have an endless supply of beautiful papers and it's never just one paper , the beauty of each scrap-page is the layers, so many matching papers all laid one upon another with embellishments enhancing the page ! I just love looking at these amazing things that people call scrapbooks.
When I finally gathered the courage to try, I realised , I had no idea how to do it or what to do. What colors do I chose. How should the layout look? How do I put text on the card?
All I had was the basic idea that I was going to make a scrapbook type card for a hubby's work friend's send off from office because he was going back to school and it needed to be big enough for 50 people to sign their good luck messages :)

I started with green color (because that's currently the color that's catching my eye the most. Does it happen to you too, I go through phases of colors that are my faves, I end up buying clothes/decorative items/ papers of all blues or oranges or pinks or whatever I like during that phase. Ha ha )
I had no way of putting text on the card( I have a terrible handwriting and cannot draw freehand if my life depended on it . :( ) So, I looked for images that had text I wanted to convey.
And then I looked through all the decorative/patterned paper I had and found one that matched with my green and didn't look too girly. (Oh and let me tell you this, making something for women is soooooo much more easier than making a card for a guy. I think that applies to getting gifts for occasions too doesn't it? Girls are just easier to shop for!)

After I finished placing the elements in a hundred ways together, I wasn't quite happy until I finally decided on this.

The elements I have here is patterned paper, my Ek Success punch for the top and bottom of the page, my Martha Stewart Doily punch under the pattern paper and pre-printed alphabet stickers to add that personal touch.
The red satin ribbon was a last minute addition and I think it brings out the brightness element !

So, here's my Best Wishes Card ala Scrapbook style. Bon Voyage Ashwin ! And have fun :)

P.S. I now appreciate scrapbookers so much more !

Quilled Flowers Birthday Card For Mom

For my mom's birthday this year, I wanted to quill her something really beautiful. The original plan was to be a garden of flowers :) ( I do have that thought still running in my head, I just may have a garden of quilled flowers hanging on my wall someday :) ) I did keep the core of the plan which was to create as many types of flowers as I could and given that my mom loves yellow , the color theme was yellow. I did add some blues to it, to bring out the yellow and it does look like the blues made the whole piece brighter. 

I did do a lot of scourging the net, searching for all sorts of quilled flower tutorials. It is amazing the number of super talented people out there making such beautiful creations :) And all with just paper. Who would have thought ! 

Thank you guys, you made it possible . And a real big thanks to the internet and Google which is the only reason I chanced upon this art form of quilling that fascinates me endlessly :) 

So , I ended up making the 'Royal' Flower, the Malaysian Flower, Fringed Flowers, Crimped Flowers, Bell Flowers, little Loop Flowers, little Heart bunched Flowers, a Zinnia (or something close to it :D) , a Vortex Flower, a double-shaded half flower and finally Roses :) I have been meaning to do roses for so long and never found the right way to do, until i stumbled upon Inna's tutorial (who by the way has made like tons of amazing flowers)

THE MALAYSIAN FLOWER - BLUE AND YELLOW

BELL FLOWERS

FRINGED FLOWER AND SOME SORT OF LOOPY FLOWERS ;) 

Folded Paper Roses and a Zinnia

I wondered how to place all the flowers together on a empty canvas and I didn't really get it right.

My mom's name is Santha (that translates to Peace in English) , and the bell flowers sat so well on a curve, so I decided to go with a monogram of  paper flowers :) 

And then on, it was placing flower by flower along the curve.

And voila, we have a quilled monogram for S with 12 types of flowers ! Yayyyyyyy

Happy Birthday Ma ! Here's to flowers that will never fade !