Quilling for Newbies

I have recently learnt paper quilling and I thought why I should not put few steps here and everyone can become quilling master.

I don't make very good models though, but my firends tell me that those are really cute and I have mastered the art. :-D

I will be posting images of few of the things I have done in my future posts. Please do comment if those are really cute :-P

Now, coming to the point. How to start quilling ?. I know there are plenty of other posts you will find about this. But this is my way.. the way I have masterd the art :D

You would need quilling strips and and slotted quilling tool. Believe me with only these two tools we can do most of all everything. Oh!.. yaaa.. we need glue :)

Below is the image of my slotted quilling tool.

Below are the few quilling strips.

and you can use any of the paper glue. Now you are ready with all the tools required for quilling.

First we will start with quilling basic shapes. You will get plenty of posts/youtube videos for learning this. But the below one is the best among them. Thanks to JK Arts group.

JK Arts : Quilling Basic Shapes

There are few other very good posts available one from Aunt Annie's Crafts and second one is my favorite Honeys Quilling.

Once you have learnt to make basic shapes with above tools, you can give the shape to your imagination.

It is very important that you make accurate and desired sizes of  shapes. If not it will spoil the model. It is very important to select the width and length of the paper stripes.

To make sure all the units used are in same size, you don't have to use any circle template or any other moulds that you would find in other posts. There are two ways:

1. Use any readily available materials at your home, like bottle caps as moulds
2. Make one coil, don't change this particular coil to any other shape. This will be used as your template. Then make the coils and just let it to open slowly holding it in your hand. At times keep checking if the size is matched with the template coil.

Sorry about the pictures guys, I never thought I would be writing blog while learning. So no good picks.

Image 1 - Template Circle

Image 2 - Expanding 2nd Circle Slowly

Image 3 - Checking for the right size of the 2nd Circle

Image 4 - Size is matching, Stop expanding here

Now, once you have learnt all basic quilling and you know you just love this art, you can invest more on this.Below is my first quilling project.

I used 5mm wide papers.

1. Make 5 eye shape from the same colour of the paper strip. This will be used as petals of the flower. Make sure you try to get the size of all eye shapes to equal. 
2. Fold any contrast colour paper to make it half of the actual length and cut at the fold mark. Roll into tight coil. This will be used as a center of the flower.
3. Leaves can be of two shape, an eye shape or you can make one end of the eye shape coil curvy (this is called as leaf shape in quilling language). I have made both and you can see in my picture above.
4. Take a half of the length of green stripe and hold the paper with quilling tool at the one end and drag the tool along the paper. Don't roll or coild the paper. It gives the curvy look or as a stroke look. 
5. Bud can be made with same colour of paper as flower petals and a green paper. The tear drop should be of 1/4th length of one flower petal. Green paper stripe should be rolled into a V scroll (refer Aunt Annie's Crafts) but don't make sharp edges. Let the V scroll hold the tear drop bud.
6. For honey  bee make 3 tear drops, 1 Black and two dark Yellow. Black should be little bigger than yellow ones. For the bee head, roll half of the black stripe into tight coil. For tentacles, take small piece of black paper, and make the curves. Don't roll the paper, use the same technique as the stem of flower.
7. Now you have all the units ready, assemble them on a plane surface with the glue.

There are many other advanced quilling tools like circle template, border buddy, tweezers, quilling coach, quilling comb, jhumka mould and list goes on. I am not using any one of these advanced tools yet. I am still using available things at home.

Hope this helps you in learning quilling :)

Happy Quilling :)