Oct 22 2010
Quilled Pumpkin Patch Characters
In October of 2009, I posted an entry featuring Ms. Pumpkin Head, a small gourd pumpkin with quilled features just like the children’s toy, Mr. Potato Head.
Imagine my surprise and delight when Lynne Carr, a member of a quilling Yahoo! group I belong to, posted this photo of her wonderful pumpkin patch characters based on my design. Of course, I had to ask her if she would share them with you and she graciously agreed.
Lynne’s Quilling Background
Lynne discovered quilling in the fall of 2006 when she picked up a child’s quilling kit for a friend’s daughter in her local Dollar Tree. The friend decided she didn’t want it so it was set aside for six months. Lynne was going to throw it out, but decided to go online to see what quilling was. After she “picked [her] jaw up off the floor,” she decided to give it a try herself and it was instant love at first twirl.
Her first quilling piece was a simple purple flower. She tried the many designs she found online and soon discovered a 3D picture of several frogs sitting around a pond which won her heart. With her Dollar Tree strips now gone, Lynne started to cut her own 1/8″ strips from construction paper and tried making a small pond scene with only 1 frog and cattail. She says that the light weight construction paper quilled fine, but the paper wasn’t colorfast and her once colorful scene is now very pale as it has almost faded away.
She and her husband, Joe, are self-employed with very busy schedules. It seems as soon as she sits down to quill, she is called away (sound familiar?). Lynne loves that quilling is a versatile art you can start and stop quickly. She now purchases her quilling strips online to save time and obtain the colors she needs that don’t fade.
Lynne’s projects are a mixture of designs she has found online, her ever-growing collection of books, and her imagination. She was kind enough to mention that she enjoyed my Quilling with Confidence eBook* and actually quilled the “beautiful cross” (a free quilling pattern found in the eBook) and has it hanging on a wall over her desk.
Lynne’s Smiles
She has a collection of simple designs that she calls her “smiles” — things like frogs, butterflies, angels, ducks, flowers, etc., that are usually ½ to 1 inch in size. She keeps them with her and gives one to anyone she sees who she thinks needs a smile. She says that the reaction has been amazing. These little pieces of twirled paper have a way of making people of all ages smile who moments before were frustrated, upset, or sad. Lynne’s philosophy about her “smiles” is wonderful:
“I tell people who want to give me money for them, smiles are meant to be free. I gave them my smile and they gave me theirs in return, so we were even. And those smiles have given both my husband and me memories no money could ever buy.”
How awesome is that??? What a wonderful way to spread quilling love with others. Kudos, Lynne.
Lynne’s Pumpkin Patch Characters
This past summer Lynne found my blog post on Ms. Pumpkin Head and waited until the gourds were available in the stores to give it a try. She changed the lips to a simple half moon for a more comic look. To dress the pumpkins she went online to look for patterns for a child’s costume hat and found one of a pirate. She reduced the size of the pattern and glued it to a black band and lets it sit like a sweatband around the pumpkin.
For the witch’s hat, she drew two circles, 4-inches in diameter, on black construction paper, then cut one of the circles in half. She rolled the half circle into a cone and glued it together, just barely overlapping the sides. Next, she sat the cone in the center of the full circle and traced around it so she would know the diameter of the cone. She then made another circle in the center about the size of a quarter. She cut out the quarter size hole in the center, then cut from the hole to the middle circle (the one she drew when she traced around the cone) like she was fringing around it. She folded the fringe up and glued the fringe inside the cone shape. This gave her a witch’s hat that fit over the stem of the pumpkin and the stem helped keep it from falling off. She offered this great tip: When drawing on black construction paper use a pencil, it leaves a shinny mark that is easier to see.
The only problem she ran into was using Elmer’s glue to adhere the features to the pumpkin because they pop off if they come in contact with anything. She has given a dozen pumpkins away and explains to the recipient that if it happens, just pick up some Elmer’s and glue them back. No one seems to mind this little drawback. Everyone has loved the pumpkins, and are just amazed about how they look as they are shocked to find out it’s a real pumpkin.
I managed to find the scrapbook department and discovered a wonderful 4.5″ x 6.5″ bound stack of Halloween papers by DCWV, Inc., called The Midnight Spell matstack®. It contains 72 heavy card stock sheets with wonderful Halloween prints (half of them have foil or glitter) that are just the right size for card making. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but just had to have it. I had a coupon, but when I went to pay, it was on sale, so it only cost me around $5.00. What a deal!
A very dear friend of mine, Sharon Foster (who, incidentally was my very first quilling student), has just opened a working studio in Hiram, Georgia, and has agreed to let me use the space to teach quilling classes. Since it is a private studio, there won’t be the annoying distractions that frequently accompany classes taught in a big box store, such as loudspeaker announcements or gawking onlookers. Instead, you’ll learn quilling in a fun, casual atmosphere.
I belong to several Yahoo quilling groups. If you want a constant flow of creative ideas and great quilling, I urge you to join.
