Quilling a Masterpiece

You too can create a masterpiece. Ok, this is someone else's masterpiece but you can make it your own.

Paper quilling is an art form where you use glued strips of paper to make a work of art. Here we are using quilling to embellish a printout of a famous painting. (I'm gonna make you look up what painting that is if you do not recognize it.)

This is something simple and fun to do, so start quilling a masterpiece.

For this you need paper, scissors and glue.

I had a pack of multi-color paper. It roughly matched the palette of colors that I wanted to use. You can go all out and find papers to match all the colors but you can "blend" unmatched colors with your limited stock.

You can try quilling with scrap paper, construction paper, even newspapers or old magazines to get a different effect.

You need to cut the paper into consistently sized thin strips about 5/8ths of an inch wide. I stacked up a few sheets or paper and ran it through my rotary paper cutter to cut the strips. You can buy the strips precut at the craft store but why buy when you can make at home.

Any clear drying paper glue will do.

You can purchase or you can make paper quilling tools. You can also do without. They are aids to help you wind up the paper tightly to get some springiness and curls into the paper. You don't really need them unless you are really serious about doing a professional job of quilling. Even my slightly uneven cut strips give it that rustic homemade look which I appreciate.

So, print out an image of what you would like to transform by quilling. The image doesn't really need to even be high resolution, as long as you can make out the general shapes and colors to follow with.

I used some spray glue to mount the image to a big piece of stiff cardboard to make everything easy to work with.

Similar to painting by the numbers, you just need to glue on paper strips to match the colors in the picture.

Start out by blocking in the wide blocks of color or outlines of your major shapes.

You want to glue one edge of the rolled up paper strip to your image.

Since I don't have a quilling tool, I dragged each strip of paper over the table edge to give it a curl and tried to wind each roll tightly. As I went along, I guess the trick is to let the rolls relax a bit by just laying it down to unwind for a minute. You can then pinch or shape the rolls to fit what you want it to cover.

Cover the area with glue where the curled paper strip will go. Simply press the paper strip into place. Hold for a few moments for the glue to grab. Continue filling in with other colors or adjoining pieces.

You will find this process can take some time depending on how diligent you want to be. Wait for the second round to go back in to fill in any open spaces or where there was sparse quilling. Fill in with smaller and smaller pieces of curled paper strips.

Some people use tweezers to adjust the quilling. I just used the point of a pair of scissors to pull up some crushed sides when I jammed in filler pieces. I also had to trim some errant quillings that were made from strips wider than the rest. I suppose one could sand the entire finished quilling to get a flat surface if desired.

and watch the paint, wait, glue dry.

When finished, go to the workshop to create a gilded frame for your masterpiece so you can hang it in the Loo.

Enjoy!