Valentine Paper Quilling

This is being entered into the Paper Contest, so please vote for this project if you enjoyed it and found it useful.

My wife and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this year (as evidenced by the date on the rose's ribbon used at our reception) and I wanted to make a little something special for this Valentine's Day, so I decided to make a little paper quilled love note. This can be altered by your imagination for any celebration. Make a greeting card or just a fun piece of art. I'm actually thinking about painting the face of the Bride of Frankenstein then using paper quilling to create her one of a kind hair style. I think that would look pretty cool!

~ Print out of image you want to use

~ Paper of various colors (I used heavier stock paper typically used for scrapbooking)

~ Toothpicks and similar items of different sizes (e.g. X-ACTO handle)

~ White glue and small paint brush or glue stick

~ Scissors and/or X-acto Knife

~ Ruler/Straight Edge

~ Cutting mat

~ Paper clips (optional)

~ Picture frame (optional)

Using the cutting mat, ruler, and an X-ACTO knife, I cut 1/4 inch strips of red, pink, and light pink paper. You can make larger and/or smaller strips depending on what kind of look you want. Use various sizes on one piece of art for added interest.

This is a great project for kids to use their imagination and to improve manual dexterity. The strips don't have to be perfect, so using safety scissors and some supervision could make for a fun learning project!

To make paper curls, I used toothpicks, the handle of my X-ACTO knife, the handle of my paintbrush, and a pen. Wrap the paper around the object until you get the look you want. You can always unroll them a little if needed.

Make round decorations in the same manner, just glue the end down after you've rolled the paper. After drying, pinch one side together to make a "teardrop" or two sides together to make an "eye" shape.

Use individual or multiple strips to create non curled ribbons or other patterns. If needed, use a paper clip to hold the paper together while glue is drying. Typically, I don't find this step necessary as the glue dries fairly quickly.

I started decorating the piece by taking individual strips, applying a small amount of glue along the bottom edge then placing the paper along the perimeter of the hearts. From there, I used the various methods described above to create decorations and glued them in place, starting next to the hearts then working outward.

Helpful Hints:

Cur the paper strips different lengths to make different size decorations.

If you have seem lines from where paper meets other paper, use a decoration to cover them up a bit.

Minimize any movement when you place the glued decoration onto your surface. If you have to pull something up and it leaves color or damages the paper, no problem! Cover it up with another decoration!