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.
*You can receive your own copy of my free eBook, Quilling with Confidence, by filling in the form located in the top right of this blog.
As promised, all feedback responses were put into a single folder and I used random.org to generate a random number used to select the winner of a free quilling pattern.
This is a quick post, but I just had to share. Our oldest daughter dropped by at lunch and showed me these paper plates she found at an after Christmas sale. These are regular paper plates, but the design printed on them is a beautiful all over pattern of white quilled snowflakes. Aren’t they just awesome!
I enjoy mixing various elements together with my quilling and this heart’s 1/8-inch depth makes it a great companion element for the standard 1/8-inch width quilling paper. The next time unfinished wooden items go on sale, I’m going to take a closer look at the other shapes available.
I am so excited to share the news! As promised in my last post, the first pattern I’ve completed for 2011 is for the Quilled Captured Snowflake — a beautiful paper snowflake captured for all time inside a glass ornament — just like a ship in a bottle.
The Thanksgiving leftovers may still be in the refrigerator, but I am going into crafting overdrive to finish up as many quilling pieces as I can. I have been lucky enough to have been accepted into two juried Christmas houses this year. 
I don’t own all the paper crafting tools and gadgets I would like. For the type of crafting I do, I find I need variety more than quantity and it is hard for me to justify spending the money on a new punch, die cut, etc., when I only want a few pieces. That’s why I keep my eyes open for ready-made items I can embellish with quilling.
If you keep your eyes open, you can find lots of ready-made packaging just waiting for a touch of quilling to turn it from ho-hum to Ho-Ho-Ho! (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist).
