Entries and Winners for Challenge 4 - December 2010

I hope you all had a very Happy Christmas!
My apologies for not posting the Christmas tree tutorial. I was held up in some personal issues. I promise I will post it soon.
This challenge I received 2 entries and both are so good that I was not able to choose just one winner.
Here are the entries and also the winners for Challenge 4 - the 3D Christmas Tree - Vidushi and Swarna :

Vidushi's Christmas Tree

Swarna's Christmas Tree

Aren't these fabulous?

Congratulations Vidushi and Swarna!

 

Challenge 4 - December 2010

The challenge for this month is based on festive theme too. And for the first time it's going to be a 3D challenge.
Create a 3 Dimensional Christmas tree. You may then decorate it with quilled ornaments too!
I will upload a tutorial this weekend for inspiration. So keep watching.
Also, the deadline for this challenge is extended until 27th December 2010 - 11 p.m IST.

Due to some technical issues, I am not able to enable the widget to upload the links. While I sort it out, please email me your entries at takeaquillpill@gmail.com and leave me a comment here. Sorry for the inconvenience  :(

Winner of Challenge 3

Here I am with the results for Challenge 3. First of all my apologies for the delay in putting up the results. This challenge I had lot more confusion than the past one. Hence this time there is not 1 nor 2 but 3 winners. So here are they in the order of submission-

Helen,  Phillipa ,and Preethu - The Winners of November Challenge 2010. And here are the winning cards-

Helen's card

Helen's card has a very beautiful color combination. The holly leaves have turned out to be perfect!

Phillipa's card

Phillipa's snowflakes are very pretty. She's very creative and always comes up with some innovative ideas.

Preethu's card

Preethu's card has very minute work, especially the way she has quilled Lord Ganesha.

Congratulations Helen, Phillipa and Preethu!

A special mention about Ann's card. I loved the way Ann has used the heart scrolls to create a cute christmas tree. A simple yet beautiful card! And here's it -

Ann's card

I hope that you all enjoyed this challenge. The next challenge is going to be a bit "challenging". So stay tuned :).

Challenge 3 - November 2010

It's a festive season and this month's challenge is based on this theme too.

Create a quilled festive card. You may choose any festival of your choice. Be it Halloween, Diwali, Eid, Thanksgiving, Christmas or any other you would like to.

The challenge will close on 20th November (11:00 p.m IST).

Winner of Challenge 2

The wait is over. I thank you all for you patience. Believe me, I had a very tough time deciding the
winner and took help from many of my friends. And they all came up with 2-3 best cards
and all different :). Finally I decided to choose 2 winners -
The winners for October challenge 2010 are Karen and Heather-

Karen's card

Heather's card

Congratulations Karen and Heather! 

Karen's card has a great color combination. It's a simple yet beautiful card. The butterfly
and flower both are very neat.

Heather's card has beautiful roses. The light color flowers and butterflies perfectly
compliment the dark background.

And here's something about what I liked about each one of your cards, in the order of
submission -
Anita Kumar - Loved the fresh colours used in your card. The butterfly style is also very unique.

Karuna - Loved the card format and the way you have used the stamping background

Ann - Your card has a beautiful format too and I loved the background paper pattern which has
created a lovely overall combination.

Vidushi - Very neat quilling. You have just started with quilling and it's your second card,
but the quality of coils is no less than an experienced quiller

Mansi - Loved the flowers. The butterfly style is also very unique

Phillipa - There couldn't have been a more perfect imitation of the background flower! Very
neat quilling too.

Thank you all for participating in October challenge.
A Special thanks to Kaela and Helen. Both of them created a card for the challenge but missed
the deadline.
And here are their cards -

Kaela's card

Helen's card

 Aren't both the cards lovely?
I hope you all enjoyed this challenge as much I enjoyed setting it up.

Challenge 2 - October 2010

Your wait is over and here comes the October pill.
This month's challenge is quite easy. You need to -

Create a quilled card having at least one flower and one butterfly.

You can refer Tutorial 2 for some inspirations :)
The challenge will close on 20th Oct(9.00 a.m IST)

Tutorial 2: Making sunflower and butterfly using basic shapes

In this tutorial I will show you how to make a sunflower and a butterfly using basic shapes. Let me first start with the basic shapes.
1) Loose coil -
The first 3 steps are same as that of tight coil. If you want to see the pictures of these steps , you may refer to Tutorial 1: Making tight coils.
Step 1:
Take the quilling strip having desired length and width in one hand and quilling tool in other(prominent hand).
Step 2:
Insert a tiny part of the strip's end into slot of the quilling needle holding the strip between the thumb and the index finger such that the needle rests on the index finger.
Step 3:
Start rolling the needle across the paper length maintaining the even tension using your thumb and index finger.
Step 4:Remove the coil from the needle and allow it to relax. It will form a loose coil. 

Allow coil to relax

Step 5:
Put a small quantity of glue on the free end of the strip and stick it to close the coil.Your loose coil is ready. 

Loose Coil

2) Teardrop -
Step 1:
Take a quilling strip of desired length and width and create a loose coil.
Step 2:
Now pinch the loose coil (better if pinched at the glued part) as shown in figure below to make a teardrop-

Pinch loose coil

Teardrop

3) Eye or Marquise -
Step 1:
Take a quilling strip of desired length and width and create a loose coil.
Step 2:
Hold the loose coil between both hands with thumb and index finger.
Step 3:
Pinch the opposite points of loose coil with both the hands at the same time as shown in figure below-

Eye / Marquise - Pinch at opposite sides

4) Loose scroll - 
Step 1:
Take a quilling strip of desired length and width and roll it as we do for loose coil but leaving some portion of quilling strip.
Step 2:
Remove the coil and let it relax. Your loose scroll is ready.

5) Heart scroll -
Step 1:
Take a quilling strip of desired length and width and fold it at the center.

Fold strip in middle

Step 2:
Insert one end of the strip into slot of the quilling needle and roll it the direction of second end. Remove the strip form the needle tool and let it relax.

Roll one end inwards

Step 3:
Now repeat step 2 with the remaining end.

Roll second end

Heart Scroll

6) Quilled Sunflower -
Step 1:
To make a Sunflower as shown in figure above, take a brown strip of desired length and width and make a tight coil. The quilling strip used for center tight coil should be of larger length than those used for petals.
Step 2:
Make a yellow teardrop shape. Put a small quantity of glue on the curved surface of the teardrop and stick it on the circumference of the brown loose coil.

Put some glue on curved surface of teardrop

Stick teardrop to center tight coil

Step3:
Make enough yellow teardrops to cover the entire circumference of tight coil.

Stick some more teardrops around tightcoil to complete the flower

Step 4:
To make stem, put some glue on the edge of a curved quilling strip of desired length and stick it as shown in figure below-

Add stem

Step 5:
To make the leaves, create 3 marquises using green color quilling strip.

Add leaves

7) Butterfly-
Step 1:
To make a butterfly create 4 teardrop and 4 heart scroll shapes using 2 different colors.

4 Teardrops and 4 heart scrolls

Step 2:
Glue the teardrop between the heart scroll to create wing as shown in figure below-

Put some glue on the inner bottom of heart scroll

Insert teardrop between the heart scroll to
create a wing

Step 3:
Repeat step 2 for remaining 3 teardrops and heart scrolls
Step 4:
Create a marquise using black/brown color quilling strip for the butterfly's body.

Butterfly body and wings

Step 5:
Glue all the 4 wings on the butterfly body (2 on each side) as shown in figure below.

Glue wings to body

Step 6:
You can add 2 tiny loose scrolls for quilling strips for antennae.

Make 2 loose scrolls for antennae

Stick antennae to the body

And here is the sunflower and the butterfly :)

Sunflower and butterfly

 I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. My apologies for the poor quality images. My camera had issues and I had to use my mobile phone camera to take the pics.

Winner of Challenge 1

First of all I would like to thank Molly and Anita for participating in the challenge. I hope you had fun.

And now the winner for Challenge 1 - September 2010 is Molly Smith.

Molly is a designer, author and educator for the craft and hobby industry. The hardcover edition of her book - "The New Paper Quilling" has just been republished as a paperback. Here is the winning bookmark -

Congratulations Molly! You have entered the "Hall of Fame" as the first winner. You can design Challenge 2 - October 2010 and pick a winner. You can email me your design by 26th September 2010.

There is a surprise for Anita Kumar, for being the first participant. Anita, email me your contact details so that I can send you a small gift. Here is Anita's bookmark-

I would like to give a special thanks to Neha Gala. She had promised me that she would participate in the challenge but was held up in work and missed the deadline. But she kept her promise by making the bookmark. Here's it -

I hope that there would be more participation next challenge onwards.

Challenge 1 - September 2010

I couldn't resist waiting  for 1st of September to post this challenge. Hence posting it 2 days early :).
So here's your very first monthly quilling pill -

Create a bookmark making maximum use of tight coils. You may use other coils, but they must be less in number than the tight coils.

Checkout Tutorial 1 to learn about tight coils.
The challenge will close on 20th Sept(9.00 a.m IST)

Tutorial 1: Making tight coils

In this tutorial, I will show you how to make tight coils.These are the simplest of all shapes.
Step 1:
Take the quilling strip having desired length and width in one hand and quilling tool in other(prominent hand).
Step 2:
Insert a tiny part of the strip's end into slot of the quilling needle holding the strip between the thumb and the index finger such that the needle rests on the index finger as shown in the figure below-

Insert tiny part of strip's end in needle slot

Step 3:

Start rolling the needle across the paper length maintaining the tension using your thumb and index finger

Start rolling

Maintain tension using thumb and index finger

Step 4:
Remove the coil from the needle and pull its free end gently to make sure that it is tight.
Step 5:
Put a small quantity of glue on the free end of the strip and stick it to close the coil.

Put small amount of glue of free end and stick it

Your tight roll is ready. You can make a lot of variations by putting your imagination to work :)

Finished tight roll

Tutorial 0 : Introduction to paper quilling

Paper quilling, also known as paper filigree, is an ancient art of creating beautiful designs by using paper strips. The coloured paper strips are rolled over a needle to create coils. These coils are then shaped and glued to form various patterns.

In this tutotial, I am going to introduce you to the various materials required for quilling.

Types of Paper

Various materials used in quillling

1) Quilling papers - You get a variety of pre-cut quilling strips in market with various widths too (3mm, 5mm, 10mm). You can also cut your own quilling strips. However the paper has to be of right thickness. Paper thickness is measured in gsm (Grams per square meter). Higher the gms value, thicker the paper. Ideally 100 to120 gsm should be good for quilling.

If you are new at quilling, would suggest you to buy a pack of quilling strips so that you don't run out of patience.

Quilling strips are available in various types like- Plain/solid color, Graduated, Two tone, Pearl, Metallic, Acid free and many more.

Slotted needle quilling tools

2) A pair of good scissors

3) Glue -You would need a fast drying clear glue. PVA glue / White craft glue works great. I prefer glue bottle with a nozzle. It helps in better glue application. You can use a toothpick or a thin brush too.

4) Quilling needle tool - This is optional and you can do fine without it too. You can roll the paper using your fingers only. But needle tool, especially the slotted needle tool is good for beginners.

Here is a close up of the slotted needle tool.

5) Quilling Comb - This is also an optional tool used for husking or creating wheatear coils.

6) Crimper machine - This is used for creating crimped paper i.e giving paper ridges and waves texture.

These are some of the basic materials used in quilling. So gather your supplies and get ready to learn and participate in the monthly quilling challenges.