Jan 30 2010
Enhance Your Quilling with Blending Chalks
Fig 1
Blending chalks are an excellent choice when you want to add a bit of color to your quilling. Made by several manufacturers, they come in a wide array of colors from soft pastels to bright jewel tones. Some even have a bit of shimmer mixed in (Fig. 1).
Fig 2
You can apply chalks directly to your finished quills. This allows you to add color without splicing strips together. For the leaf (Fig. 2), I applied a darker green to the lower portion of the shaped marquise and yellow to the top with just a touch of red on the tip. In the photo, a plain leaf is on the left for comparison.
Fig 3
Fig 4
Adding a color that blends or contrasts with your quilling is a great way to add interest and draw your eye into the quilling, just like when you add a mat to a piece of framed art (Fig. 4).
Fig 5
The chalk highlights the subtle texture of the background paper without taking anything away from the true focus of the card — the quilled floral heart wreath (Fig 5).
Tip: Blending chalks are actually quite inexpensive and last a very long time. They are softer, however, than the sidewalk or blackboard chalks you might have played with as a child and they crumble easily. Also, I found out the hard way that the individual pieces of chalk are not glued inside their trays and will fall out if dropped, making a mess on your carpet if you are not careful.
If you would like to quill your own Floral Heart Wreath, a 12-page downloadable PDF quilling pattern is available. Check out the Quilling Patterns section of the blog to learn more.
I was browsing through the bargain bins of ribbon and found a funky retro paisley design in yellow, green, and orange that simply screamed mini skirt and go-go boots. 
I used the ribbon as my inspiration for a fun retro birthday card featuring a quilled go-go boot. The boot was created using an “outline & fill-in” quilling technique. You can use this technique to create any design you wish by following these simple steps:
Tear several strips of paper (I find 6″ to be a good length) and quill them into loose coils. Starting at either the top or bottom of your design, pinch the coils into shapes that fit within the outline of your design. Glue the quills together where they touch and pin into place. 
There is still time to embellish your Christmas crafts with quilling. This sweet little angle works up quickly and would add a heavenly touch to your Christmas projects.
To make the halo, fold the 2″ strip of metallic gold paper in half and glue the two sides together. You now have a 1″ strip with gold on both sides. Overlap the two ends and glue together to form an oval loop. Glue the halo flat (with the glued ends down) onto the background, slightly at an angle above the angel’s head.
Last year, I used this little angel on Christmas cards. I used the same blue scrapbook paper that reminds me of a winter’s night that I used on the snowflake cards in the previous post and added a homespun feel with the golden gingham held in place with mini brads.
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I want to thank all of the ladies who attended the Christmas quilling class at the Marietta Community School. I hope you had a great time because I know I sure did!
When creating the card, I punched a 1/16″ hole in the card at the top of the circle background. This allowed me to thread the snowflake’s hanging loop through to the inside where I secured it with a piece of tape.
Many of us are on a tight budget, but you don’t have to trim your gift giving list this year. These cards are perfect when you need a little something this holiday season for co-workers, as a hostess gift, or for members of your book club. You can whip up a batch quite inexpensively, but I guarantee they’ll be appreciated and make a lasting impression. 
I experimented with puffy markers in an earlier post and thought that they might work well with spiders. Since Halloween is right around the corner (where did the year go?), I thought I would give it a try. I used a dark gray quilling paper for the spider hoping that the black marker would show up a bit more than straight black on black, but the contrast isn’t there. However, the texture the marker created is good. It doesn’t show up very well in the photo, but it does look cool in person. 
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I was having lunch one day with a good friend of mine, Marsha (hi, Marsha!) right after the launch of my blog and she was kind enough to listen to me as I told her about a tea-stained tag I saw on the ‘net and that I thought it would make good vintage background for a piece of quilling. Marsha made the comment, “I guess you couldn’t stain the actual quilling because it would fall apart because of the glue.” 
My curiosity was piqued and I had to find out.
I started by creating a quilled rose card (Fig 1) to use as the control for this experiment (remember your high-school science class?) to see what difference the staining made. The card consists of a quilled pink rose with mint green leaves on a white tag which is then layered on a rose stem printed paper and plain pink card stock. This was adhered to an ivory card (note: the actual folded card was never stained).
I then made a duplicate card, except I did not mount the pink card stock background to the actual folded card. I placed the piece on a plastic plate and dabbed it with the used coffee grounds (Fig 2). 
The staining changed the look of papers giving them a more antique feel (Fig 6). 
The final photo (Fig 9) shows the comparison of each card. (9A is the original control card, 9B is the card stained as a whole piece, and 9C is the card made from pre-stained pieces). 
Staining the pieces individually gave me a lot more control. It was much easier to wipe away some of the stain if needed. The quilling papers crinkled up, but were easy enough to smooth out with my fingernail before rolling. You’ll note that I left the crinkle in the paper used for the tassel in this card since I thought it gave it more of a “fiber” effect. 
Overall, I like the looks of the card made with this technique. I think it looks like it was aged with time and gives a very romantic feel to the quilling.
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