Wednesday, January 27, 2010

What is Quilling Paper?

Quilling paper is type of paper specifically designed for the art of quilling because it is cut into strips that will easily coil and roll. The most popular width is 1/8 inches but you can also find ¼ inches for a thicker design, as well as a few other widths. There are hundreds of different colors and paper designs available for sale which really allows you to make a variety of unique creations.

I’ve seen a wide variety of paper types for sale beyond a simple solid colored paper. You can also find graduated colored paper, two-tone paper, pearlized paper, or even glittery lined paper.

If you are creating quilled paper crafts for scrapbooks you’ll certainly want to be sure that the paper is acid free so it does not ruin your photos and so it lasts for a long time. Otherwise, you can chose to use any type of paper you’d like. You can even make paper strips at home if you have the right tools to get all the strips even. Uneven paper strips will create ugly and unprofessional designs so you’ll want to be sure that the paper you are working with is straight and cut cleanly.

You will notice that quilling paper is specially designed to be thin and smooth so it will easily to coil around your quilling tool. It will be difficult to use card stock or another type of thick paper since it is too thick for coiling. You’ll notice that using thick paper will make your coils crease instead of stay smooth and rolled. As long as you purchase “quilling paper” from a craft store, you’ll be certain that the paper is going to be great for your quilled paper projects.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

How Difficult Is It To Do Paper Quilling? Can Anyone Learn How to Quill?

The art of paper filigree is not a quick, mass-produced artform. While it is not difficult to learn, it does require a good eye for detail, time, and patience....lots of patience!

Surprisingly, quilling is not difficult to learn how to do but it does take some time and patience since you are working with intricate designs and small pieces of paper. You just need a few proper tools and the time to work on your quilling. The great thing about the art of paper quilling is that almost anyone at any age can learn how to quill paper after just a little bit of practice. You can work on your quilling creations for a few minutes or for many hours. It depends on how quickly you want to work; although many professional quillers will suggest that quilling does take quite some time. I’m pretty sure that once you get started quilling, you won’t want to stop. However, if you are just wanting to learn quilling to add a few designs to your scrapbook or card making, you can do that in very little time and find it fairly easy to master quickly. Quilling at its basic, is rolling a strip of paper around a tool then shaping it. Quilled paper shapes are then formed into a larger design and glued together. Once you learn the basic coils and scrolls, you’ll be able to create artwork and patterns in very little time.

How Do You Learn How to Do Paper Quilling?

Quilling is a fun and easy craft to learn but as a beginner you’ll certainly need to have some patience as you learn the basics to quilling and start making cool quilling designs. The tools you’ll need are easy to find once you know where to look and they are inexpensive. You can spend as much time as you want quilling; it can take just a few minutes or a few days to created a quilled design, depending on how detailed and intricate you would like to make it. Quilling is a craft but also an art form so don’t be discouraged if your quilling does not look exactly like the pattern you used or the design you anticipated. Your work of art will be unique and beautiful if you take the time to learn the basics and understand the proper tools and supplies to use.

I’d love to help you learn the art of quilling with my new course at learnquilling.com I’ll even give you a free sneak peek of my course so you can see if its for you. Beginner quillers will certainly enjoy learning step by step and learning my time saving, money saving, and sanity saving tips I give you through this course. Once you learn how to do basic quilling from me, you can continue to learn more advanced patterns and really make this a form of art that is unique to you and a beautiful way to decorate all sorts of crafts such as scrapbooking, card making, and other craft projects you’ve already created. Quilling does not have to be a stand alone art and instead it can really be something great that you can add to other projects you enjoy working on. Learning how to quill will give you an additional way to jazz up so many of your craft projects and can be learned by following step by step instructions on DVD and in a written manual with photos.

I will say that if you’re good at learning something new just by seeing a photo and being able to replicate it, then grab a quilling book from your local craft store (if you can even find it…they aren’t available in most stores but you can sometimes get them on the craft store’s website). However if you’d prefer to learn how to do quilling with step by step instructions, hundreds of color photos, and an instructional DVD that you can watch while you do your quilling craft at the same time, then check out learnquilling.com and you can even grab your first lesson for free to get a sneak peek at the instructional quilling course I’ve put together called “Secrets to Quilling Success” only at www.LearnQuilling.com