Paper Quilling

Classic repost, originally posted Jan. 3, 2008

It was my turn to lead our Keepers At Home group this week and we had so much fun learning the handicraft of paper quilling!

Paper quilling is the art of creating designs from strips of coiled paper. There are quilling tools and quilling papers available, but we simply used materials I had around the house.

How To:

Using my paper cutter, I pre-cut strips of cardstock into 1/4″ wide strips.

I set out the following supplies:

• Strips of paper
• Quilling tools: pencils, screwdrivers, toothpicks, chopsticks (any skinny, round objects I could find) Try to offer varied widths for different coiling effects.
• Glue (with toothpicks for “painting the glue” on the paper to seal the coils)
• Sheets of cardstock to display the finished designs

The girls coiled the strips into various shapes depending on the designs they were creating. Some coils were tight, some were loose, some were shaped by pinching the coil, and some were only coiled on one end of the strip. Our techniques may not have been “proper”, but we had fun and created very pretty designs.

Aren’t they cute?

Feel free to link your own paper quilling projects in the comments. I can’t wait to see them!

Stuffed Felt Ornaments

These turned out so cute, and they were fairly easy for a beginning to intermediate sewing project.

• Draw the shape onto a piece of felt, making it about 1/4″ bigger than you’d like the finished product to be.

• Double the felt and cut out the front and back pieces at the same time.

• Decide which sides will face outward.  Go ahead and sew any buttons, beads or other small pieces onto each piece.

• Place the fronts together so that you can only see the “wrong” sides.

• Sew a straight stitch all the way around the felt, leaving about a 1/4″ seam.  BE SURE TO LEAVE 1″-1 1/2″ OPEN SO YOU CAN TURN THE ORNAMENT INSIDE OUT.

• After turning the ornament inside out, fill it with popcorn sized pieces of batting until it’s as fluffy as you desire.

• Sew up the opening with a simple straight stitch.

The kids chose to add a little piece of embroidery thread afterward as a hook, but I sewed a ribbon hook into mine (bell) as I stiched around the edges.  My hook is much stronger and more attractive.