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July 4th is right around the corner and I wanted to create a special quilling project to celebrate America’s birthday.  I was looking around the Internet for patriotic images when I happened upon an American flag made with safety pins and pony beads.  Now, this is not a new craft; children have been making safety pin jewelry for years.  But this time when I saw the photo something clicked and I began to wonder if I could substitute quilled beads for the plastic pony beads.   I pulled out a safety pin from my sewing basket and made a few tight coils as test beads.  I slipped them on the safety pin and realized that the idea would work.  After a trip to my local craft store for the safety pins, I was ready to make my own version of this childhood crafting classic. 

 

Quill (9) blue 3″ tight coils, (26) red 3″ tight coils, and (21) white 3″ tight coils.  If you think that your pin will be handled a lot, spray the quills with several coats of sealer to protect them.  Next, take a 1-1/4″ long coiless pin slip on three blue tight coils, then four more tight coils in this order: white, red, white, red. When it is fully loaded, shut the pin and crimp the clasp with your pliers so it cannot come open.  Repeat for two more pins.  Load the five remaining coiless pins with seven tight coils in this order: red, white, red, white, red, white, red.  Crimp the clasps to secure the beads. 

 

Using the photo as a guide, assemble your American Flag pin by placing the eight 1-1/4″ pins on the shaft of the 2″ pin, making sure they are in the right order.  With the front of the pin facing you, wrap one end of the wire around left-hand side of the shaft of the 2″ pin several times then run it through the pin loop to secure it.  Wrap the wire several times around the handle of your quilling tool to form little coils.  Secure the remaining end of the wire to the clasp end of the 2″ safety pin.  In honor of our brave troops, tie the yellow ribbon onto the wire loop and clip the ends.

 

Wear your American Flag pin on July 4th or any day you want to show your national pride!

 

I encourage you to take this idea and adapt it to your own country’s flag. 

 

*Coiless safety pins have the same basic shape as regular safety pins, but instead of having a circle loop of wire at the end, the wire simply bends. I used The Jewelry Shoppe brand coiless pins that I found at Hobby Lobby.  If you can’t find coiless pins, you can certainly use regular safety pins, but you will have to purchase them a bit longer because you will lose a bit of available space due to the coil.  Also, if you use regular safety pins to hold your tight coil beads, you will need to pull apart the double looped end of the two inch long safety pin wide enough to slide the other safety pin loops through to the other side of the pin. 

 

 

Quilling Tip:  A Google image search will bring up a multitude of wonderful pictures when you need creative inspiration.  Don’t limit your search to quilling, but look at all types of images from clip art to photographs.  You never know what you might find … or where it might lead you in your creative journey.

For me, summer means the beach.  I love to hear the sound of the ocean waves crashing upon the shore as I lounge contentedly under the shade of a big umbrella.  But, since I can’t go to the beach, I thought I would do the next best thing and craft something tropical instead.  Today’s quilling pattern is a fun one because it introduces a new quilling coil, technique, and tool. 

 

The trunk of the palm tree is made from a coil called a “rectangle” because it is, well, a rectangle.  To make this quill, roll a loose coil and pinch it into a marquise.  Next, move the marquise slightly between your thumbs and index fingers and pinch again, forming two more points near the original ones.  You should now have a rectangle quill that has two long sides and two short sides. 

 

We’ll also be playing with a new tool — a paper crimper.  I bought mine at the North American Quilling Guild Conference this past May.  The one I have is made by Paplin, but there are several good ones on the market.  It isn’t a “must have” quilling tool, but it is so much fun. To use the crimper, simply feed your paper strip through the gears and it comes out crimped.  If you don’t have a paper crimper you can still make the palm tree.  Just make the palm fronds with straight quilling paper instead. 

 

Finally, I want to show you a bit about wheatears.  This isn’t a coil or a scroll because you don’t curl the paper, you loop it instead.  To make a wheatear, create a small loop.  Now, while holding the original loop, make a larger loop around it.  Keep looping the paper until your wheatear is as long as desired, then glue the paper down at the starting point and either tear or cut off the excess paper.  Wheatears can be left rounded, or shaped like a coil.  For the palm frond, you’ll pinch the ends like a marquise and bend the ends in opposite directions to give the frond a little curve.

 

 

Using the photo as a guide, glue the rectangle coils on top of each other to form the palm tree trunk.  Give the top rectangle coil a little pinch to form the top of the trunk.  Glue the base of each wheatear to the tip of the palm tree trunk, mixing up the sizes.  Glue the tip of the gold pressed heart to the tip of the gold teardrop to create a fun little fish swimming in the surf.

 

The palm tree and fish make perfect additions to a beach-themed tag  — a great embellishment for a vacation scrapbook page.

 

(1) Tag, 4-1/2″ x 2-1/8″, blue (DMD Industries)

Card stock scraps, turquoise, white, beige, gold

Blending chalk, brown (optional)

Jute twine, 6″

 

Using the photo as a guide, tear a strip of tan card stock, chalk the edge a darker brown (optional), and glue it to the tag for the sand.  Tear a strip of white card stock and glue it over the bottom edge of the tan strip for the crashing waves.  Tear a strip of turquoise and glue it along the bottom of the tag for the deep water, leaving a strip of the original blue tag showing for the shallow water.  Tear a curved piece of gold card stock and glue it in the corner for the sun.  Trim off any card stock edges even with the tag.  Glue the palm tree and goldfish in place.  Tie the jute on with a simple overhand knot and fringe the edges.  Be sure to sign your work!

 

I hope you decide to join me at the beach and give this project a try.  If so, I’d love to hear from you.  Send me a comment and let me know how it turned out. 

 

Quilling Tip:  Don’t pinch the crimped paper too hard or you will flatten out the paper folds and lessen the effect.

If you are going to make more than just one or two small pieces of quilling, you owe it to yourself to purchase one of the quilling workboards and design guides that are currently available.  These are quality boards made of dense self-healing cork or durable foam that are sturdy and made to last for years.  The design grid guides and circle templates help you create precise, uniform quills, which is very important when working with symmetrical patterns such as snowflakes.  

 

A variety of quality designer boards, grids, and templates are available from the Scrapbook Super Center (just enter “quilling” into the search menu) and Custom Quilling.

 

However, if you are working with a group (Scout troop, church group, craft club, etc.), it is not always practical to purchase each member their own quilling workboard.   You can make one instead.

 

 

Wax paper makes a serviceable cover sheet for your workboard; it is handy and certainly cheap enough.  However, a word of caution is in order – if too much glue is used and the quillwork is accidentally glued to the wax paper, when you remove the quillwork the wax will come up with the quilled design.  I prefer to use clear plastic sheets cut from scrap (think old plastic sheet protectors or office transparencies) or recycled plastic packaging (not the hard stuff toys are packaged in, but the thin plastic scrapbook embellishments are wrapped in, heavy-duty food baggies, etc.).  You can either pin the workboard cover in place, or wrap it around and tape it to the back.   Slip your quilling pattern underneath the cover sheet (plastic or wax paper), pin in place, and create your quilled masterpiece.

 

For symmetrical work, a design grid can be created from a piece of graph paper cut to fit your quilling workboard.  Using a ruler and black pen or fine-tip marker, draw in your vertical and horizontal lines to divide your sheet roughly into fourths.  Continue to draw in intersecting lines as needed for your pattern.  Circles can be added to the grid with the aid of a compass or circle template. 

 

If you find that you need to make many coils of the same size, you can create your own template by tracing small round objects of various dimensions (coins, bottle caps, washers, brads, etc.) onto scrap paper or card stock.  Place this guide (shown in the top photo) under your workboard cover sheet and allow your quills to uncoil to the size of the desired circle.