Paper Quilling Typography
In this instructable, I show you how I made my paper quilling typography. For this project, I intended to give this paper quilling to my friend as a wedding gift. So I choosed to make a house-shaped typography. Let's have fun!
Materials and Tools
For this paper quilling project, you're going to need:
- Scissors: I prefer small sized one
- PVAc glue (wood glue)
- Paper cutter
- Paper strips or A4: I used 80 gsm colored paper and 120 gsm white paper for the outline
- Forceps
- Pencil
- Ruler
- PatienceAdditional:
- Cutting mat: I cut my own paper strips, so cutting mat make it easier as a base for cutting the papers
- Glue applicator: I used a small straw to help me apply a small amount of glue on paper. You can also use a toothpick as a glue applicator.
- Cylindrical object to help me make a circle shape (I used a stainless straw and small plastic straw)
Cut the Paper
I cut my paper in 0.5 cm widths. I cut about a half of each piece by 8 colored paper and that was just about enough for my letters. You can also buy paper strips form paper quilling stores.
Design Your Typography
I started by drawing a house as a basic shape for the typography, then I modify the letters to fit the house line. One thing to remember, don't sketch-erase too much that can wrinkle the base paper. You can also print your own typography. Set the font to just an outline, made the font color a faint grey so that the line won't stand out terribly if you miss the line.
Outlining
For outlining, I've used 120 gsm white paper. I will recommend a heavier paper for the outline as this paper will take the strain of the elements being filled inside the letters. By placing the strips on the outline, I've marked the places where the strip will need to be bent. To curve the paper, you can gently run your finger along it, much like you would do with scissors and ribbon to get that to curl.
Using a straw, I applied a very precise line of glue over the outline of the letters. If you have a letter with a hole in the center such as "B", "A" or "R", it will be easier if you start gluing paper strips from the inner line. Using a pair of forceps, I placed the paper strip over the outline.
It would be ideal to do the whole letter with one strip but sometimes, the lengths are insufficient. This will lead to joints. In order to make the joints less conspicuous, use one of the bending points for making a joint. Put a thin line of glue on the edge of the strip and glue the new strip there. The other technique when you attach two pieces of paper together, make sure there was about 0.3 cm of overlap and glued between them.
Filling
When the outline is done, you can either quill in it or around it. An easy and effective way to fill the letters using random quilling elements (circles, marquises, teardrops etc). In this project, I began to pre-curled a number of piece of paper using my finger, and sometimes I just fill it with simply curved strips. Well, this step is the most exciting yet tiring for me. It takes about 24 hours to fill this 15 cm x 15 cm typography.
Additional Items
I made a chimney and some circles as additional ornaments. as for the circles, I used a stainless straw and a mini plastic straw to help me get perfect circles in different sizes. You can also cut clouds or leaves out of papers to make the paper quilling more lively.
The project is done here now you can frame it and don't forget to pat yourself in the back, you just finished something beautiful :)
Thank you for reading this instructable to the end. If you have any question, please don't hesitate to write in the comment or contact me through my instagram @quinzyvarira. I will also upload some footages of the process in my instagram account.
I would love it if you wanted to support my projects, please consider helping me to cover the cost of designing, documenting and sharing these projects on https://ko-fi.com/quinzyvarira.
See you in the next instructable! 😁