This project was for a lovely couple who wanted to thank a group of important people who helped them with their wedding preparation. A total of 32 pieces of 15×15 cm cards were handmade and thankfully able to be completed in a small window of time. (phew!) The nights spent putting these together was a joy as I worked on it stage by stage, and seeing it slowly take its form. If you would like to find out how these were made, read on 🙂
PART A: The Card
1. Write/ Type the words– I wanted it to be hand-drawn so I sketched ‘Thank You’ with a black felt tip marker on a piece of paper.
2. Scan it into the computer and turned it into vector using the expand feature in Adobe Illustrator. In Ai, you would have to tweak to make the edges curve nicely and to adjust it to the desired size on your page. A big advantage in sketching it is having full control over how you want the word to look exactly. *Alternatively, you can get a ready handwritten font from Dafont!
3. Print it and fix any imperfections. *You can see the little white bits when I printed them on textured paper. To cover that up, I used a gel ink black pen to colour over the white bits and it did the trick perfectly.
4. To save on cost, they were designed to fit two pieces on an A3 size paper, and later chopped down to its exact 30cm x 15cm size each.
5. I wanted these white cards to have a reversed black cover. To do that, I attached black colour paper (70gms) to the back of each white page using a spray mount. Spray mount works the fastest and best compared to using glue as it gives an even adhesive coverage to the entire page and is easy to apply.
6. After that, trim to its exact size.
7. Create round edges by using a corner rounded punch and punch the top and bottom right of each page and your done for Part A.
PART B: The Flowers
A brief of how the daisies were constructed in 4 steps (left – right).
1. Use any large flower punch (I’m using CARL, Carla Craft in CP-2, DAISY) and punch multiple flowers on both white and black 160gms paper. Set aside.
2. Using the tip of a quilling tool/something with a sharp tip like a bamboo stew (satay stick), lay that on top of each petal and press both sides of the edges inwards. Repeat this step on all the petals and it should look like the pile of flowers on the right.
3. Using a normal hole puncher, create many many many MANY black dots. Set aside. (These will be the centre of your flowers)
4. Now, this is the fun part to assemble these. Remember the black and white flowers? First, glue a black dot onto a white flower. Then, glue the white flower on top on a black flower. That makes ONE SET. Make a few double sets, which are two 1-set of flowers glued onto one another.
PART C: The Butterflies
This was my first try on quilling and I must say it has grown on me as I started it. If you have a paper shredder, you will want to use that to create 3mm-5mm strips of paper. I did not have one, so I manually cut them.
*Tip for manual cutting: Staple 3-4 sheets of 80gms A4 paper together and tape the top and bottom down onto your placemat. This will help you cut multiple sheets easily and accurately without worrying about your papers moving. Cut away the bits that have tape on when you finish.
1. Each strip is the length of an A4 size paper and for this, I used the entire length to create a tear dropped quilling shape, which you will see what it is as you read on.
2. There are many tutorial videos on Youtube that will show you how these are done. One that I found really helpful was the basic shapes you can make with paper quilling by Claire Choi. Basically, you need to create a tear dropped shape and wrap that with a black strip. Use PVA glue to secure the end of each bit. For each butterfly, will need 4 of these.
3. For the head and body, I cut each coloured strip in half (half of an A4 paper)– one half into a tight coil for the head, and the other half for the body which is a similar quilled technique as the teardrop shape. Instead, you will press both ends instead of one. *you may refer to the above tutorial for this as well.
Lay out all the parts and using a small paintbrush, I drop small dots of PVA glue on the areas that I want them to stick. Leave it for a few hours/ overnight. These are what they would look like 🙂
PART C: Putting them Together
This was my favourite part, seeing each little bit get put together. PVA glue is the way to go in keeping them stuck really well. Use a paintbrush, apply just a small bit of glue and attach it to your card. Leave it for awhile and it will stick onto it well 🙂 Give quilling a go 🙂 It’s a very beautiful way to create elements for your crafting bits – and no matter how difficult it may look, you may find yourself having a new hobby after your first try!
