Contests or Collaborations in Quilling

The NAQG Winter
Newsletter with Quilling
covered tree!

I found the winter edition of Quill America (the newsletter of the North American Quilling Guild) in my mailbox yesterday.  I was happy to see that the highlighted project on the front cover was "Festival of Trees:  Quilling Around the World."  This was the project that I had contributed to in October last year.  On the cover you can see the fully decorated tree, decked out with quilling.  And you can see close-ups of the tree-topper, a lacy angel in white.  I'm very proud to have contributed to such a beautiful tree.

And more fun was to be had upon opening up the newsletter.  Turns out the organizer took the time to photograph and catalog everyone's contributions!  I was surprised to find my own quilling right there in the newsletter :)  Warm fuzzies!  I felt my work was very appreciated.  I hope the tree raised a nice sum for the charity.  This was a very fun project, and I certainly enjoyed being a part of a larger creation like this, and for a good cause.

There are my ornaments in the circle!
It was so nice that the organizer took this
time to highlight all of our contributions!

This makes me think a great deal about contests versus collaborations.  None of us has infinite time to spend on quilling and so has to strategize what they will do with that time, and what they won't.  I much, much prefer to get involved with collaborative projects like this one.  I enjoy the feeling of all working together to a common cause, and the sense of community that engenders. 

Now, I have certainly entered quilling contests, and will no doubt do so again in the future.  But I do it mostly because that seems to be the go-to way for us to share our quilling with one another.  But I don't prefer it - quilling is already such a solo endeavor, it seems to be more enjoyable to me when more people are involved.  I also think it makes for a stronger sense of community.  I like seeing other people's quilling, but it does not have to be a contest for me to want to do that.

I'd really love to see more emphasis placed on community/collaborative work, and less on contests.  I'd like to see us move towards a model where we focus on these group projects and build strong community connections.  Winning a contest can be fun, no doubt.  But it just seems like there is too much importance placed on the contests.  What do you think?

Image Credits:  My pix of my own NAQG Newsletter

Quilled Holiday Ornaments for the Charity Project

In the end I quilled three ornaments for the "Quilled Ornament Charity Project" (even though when I made the poinsettia, I said I'd only make two).  I knew from the beginning that I didn't want to make snowflakes, since I am assuming Carie is going to get sent a ton of snowflakes.  So I concentrated on other designs that I thought would look good in a green tree.

The candy cane idea came to me as I was considering how I could use white paper for something other than snow.  I made the entire candy cane out of white, and then for the stripes, I just wound one long red strip around the piece and glued the ends down.  To add some interest, I embellished with a sprig of holly.  The star is made only from triangles, circles and eye shapes in white and yellow.  Hopefully it doesn't look too much like a snowflake :)  I didn't want to make it solid yellow, though, since I thought that would been a little boring to look at ...

So off they go to their new home, to be placed on a tree and auctioned off for charity.  Remember that the deadline for ornaments is October 15!  There is still plenty of time to quill a piece or two and send it off.  Shipping is cheap because they hardly weigh anything at all :)

Image Credit:  My pic of my own ornaments.  Designed by me.

Quilled Poinsettia Flower Ornament

As I noted in my last post, there is a need for quilled Christmas tree ornaments for a "Quilled Ornament Charity Project."  Click the link for details about the project, and to see if you might be interested in participating!

I have decided to make two ornaments for the project.  The first is this quilled poinsettia flower ornament.  It is a simple design, but it looks really lovely now that it is all finished.  I thought I'd present a tutorial here of what I did, so anyone could make one.  Although I've done plenty of live presentations and workshops, this is the first written tutorial I've really done for quilling, so here it goes.

Here's what you'll need ...

• Five full strips of dark red quilling paper, 1/4 of an inch wide.  
• Five full strips of light red quilling paper, also 1/4 of an inch wide.  
• One bright yellow strip, 4 inches long and 1/8 of an inch wide.  
• One full strip of green with gold edging, 1/8 inch wide, and another half of a strip of the same color.
• Glue, I use a good quality white craft glue.
• Ideally, a clear acrylic spray to finish the ornament 

Roll the dark red strips and form them into 'leaf' shapes.  Glue the ends of the petals together to form a five-petaled flower, as shown.  Roll the light red strips and also make 'leaf' shapes.  Glue these together to form another five-petaled flower.

Now, you can see my light red flower is a bit smaller than the dark red flower.  This was intentional.  My dark red paper is very heavy, making a larger coil when it unwinds, and my light red paper is light, rolling tightly and not unwinding so much.  So even though the strips are the same length, the petals for the light red flower layer are somewhat smaller.  If you are dealing with paper that is the same weight for each color, you'll want to take some of the length off of your light red strips to achieve this effect.  I've placed a quarter in the image to give a sense of scale, both so you can see the difference in sizes a little better, and so you can see the size of the whole design.  It's more than four inches across at this point.

After the two 'flowers' have dried, stack the light red, smaller layer on top of the larger dark red layer and glue them together, staggering the petals.  You might have to be clever with small dabs of glue here and there to ensure the design is sturdy enough to hang from a tree, but doesn't look like it has glue all over it.

Then roll the bright yellow strip into a simple open circle quill and glue that to the center of the design.  This was where I'd originally intended to stop.  I added a silver jump ring at the top so it could dangle from the tree.  But then I took another look and decided the piece needed a but more 'oomph.'  So I chose to put a pair of leaves on it.  Roll the two green/gold gilded strips and make leaf shapes, as shown.  One will be smaller than the other, of course, because the strips are not the same length.  You might need to be careful about gluing them.  I had to add extra glue to the backs (the not-gold side) to make sure that they didn't 'spring out' like, well, springs, anytime the design was bumped or dropped.  (I put it through a few tests ...)

Then I glued them between the bottom petals of the flower, keeping them flat on the work surface.  They added just the extra interest and 'bling' I was looking for.  Then I coated the design with about three light coats of clear acrylic sealer.  I use Krylon Gloss UV protective clear coating for most of my quilling.  I like the way it tends to enhance the colors while adding a bit of a sheen.  Excellent in this case, athough I use the 'matte' finish rather than the 'gloss' in some situations.

Finished!  It's about five inches from top to bottom, and has a nice sturdy feel to it.  I hope it shows up well on a six foot tree, and has the durability to survive the whole auctioning process :)

Image Credit - My photos of my new poinsettia flower ornament!

Help with the Quilled Ornament Charity Project!

Carie Metcalf of Washington state is working on a quilling project for charity, and needs a bit of help from all the quillers she can reach.  She is creating a decorated Christmas tree for her local "Festival of Trees" with the theme "Quilling Around the World."  She needs 250 quilled ornaments of any kind, from everywhere, to put on the tree by October 15, 2015.  After the six-foot-tall tree is fully decorated, it will be auctioned off to support a hospital charity.

She particularly needs help from international quillers, but will gratefully accept a quilled ornament from anywhere.  For details on what she needs, and where and how to prepare and mail your quilling, email Carie at Carecat26 (at) gmail.com.  If you are a member of the North American Quilling Guild, you can also find details inside the Spring 2015 issue.

If you'd like to help out, but have never quilled before, you can check out this tutorial at Instructables.com, which shows how to make a simple quilled snowflake.  It even includes how to cut up a sheet of paper if you don't have access to special quilling paper!  Give it a try, and you may find you really love to quill, just like the rest of us :)  I'm also going to post the instructions for my own quilled Poinsettia Ornament that I will be sending to Carie, so keep your eyes open for that.

Image Credit:  Quilling Snowflake Decorations at Instructables.com