Do you love me...

...do you Surfer Girl?

Hi guys!  I have really been a terrible blogger this month!  It's the 22nd, and I've only posted twice.  (It's no wonder I have no readers!)  This is the thing - it's hot!  Daaaaaaamn hot!  (What move...anyone?)  Our A/C is out - thought it was gonna be fixed - no such luck.  So, everything is just...difficult when you're hot.  But i've been quilling.  And planning!  I have over 300 Pinterest followers, which, I know that Pinterest following isn't an "active" process.  However, it does let me know that I pin good stuff.  And everything i pin, with one or two exceptions of what NOT to do technique-wise, is a future piece.  Someday.  Anyway - here is my Surfer Girl, and once again - while it's really beautiful in person, there are things that I have learned about doing this kind of silhouette.  The outline of the board kind of irritates me in this picture.  It looks like the board has jagged edges - which it doesn't.  It is nice and smooth and curved.  But since my gold and ivory pieces don't touch the edge continuously, it looks funny.  I like it much better in person.  And then I found that the navy blue was difficult to work with.  It was thicker, I believe.  I think it has to do with being more pigmented than the others.  Anyway - I am awaiting the arrival of my NEW 1/4 inch paper from the lovely Erin Curet whose Etsy store can be found here.  She is awesome to work with, and I cannot WAIT to get my paper.  Stay tuned, folks!

Happy Quilling, peeps!

Be True To Your School...

They're GONE!  Back to school, off to school, sleepy at school!  The kiddos are outta here!  Don't get me wrong, i love having my babies around me.  But that's just it -when they are here, we play, we do things, we go to practice, etc.  We don't quill - not purposefully anyway!  So...the last 2-3 weeks of summer vaca have been more design time and prepare time, not actually quilling time.  Thus...what "back to school" means for me...is that I finally get to start actively quilling again.  Which is good news because I have about a bajillion ideas for my art show that is in a month ~ I need to get to it!.  I have been working on a historic house, but I ran out of the color of brick i need.  So that's on hold.  But here's a sneak peek...

What I hate about sneak peeks is that it forces me (and you guys) to see every little piece that isn't perfect.  Quilling (mosaics anyway) isn't a perfect art form.  It never will be.  So if something isn't perfectly straight or if a piece of paper is bent just a little...all the flaws show up in tiny focused snippets.  And seeing that can be discouraging.  (Or you could think i am a terrible quiller...which is debatable!)  But when you look at the finished project, it looks fine.  For example, my right window is a little crooked.  I see it - you can't NOT see it.  But when you look at the entire piece, it's not near as glaring.  Will I fix it?  Probably not.  It's just different when it's  complete!

The art show I am in next month will be held at this house, so i thought I would make a quilled replica just for the heck of it.  Who knows, maybe the House Director/Curator will want it!

I'm hoping that over the next few weeks, I get quite a few pieces finished.  Some are simple mosaics, but one is kind of a big undertaking, and I haven't even started it.  We'll see.  I will keep you posted.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Quilling!

I've been loving you too long to stop now!

So, i've been out of town for a week, and I was missing my quilling BIG TIME!  I have finally (almost) finished my first mosaic.  It has been a labor of love for sure, and I have learned ALOT about quilling and paper and glue in the past 10 days.  So, without further adieu...

Not bad, eh?

The reason it's not completely finished is because my 3D circles aren't glued down.   I placed them and walked away - I really need to let them sit before I commit to their locations.  The color is off in the pic - surprise surprise.  I don't have really anything on there that is orangey.  The R side small circle is a true red and the L lower big circle with the blue one on top of it is more red wine colored.   Just an fyi.  Oh and - it measures 6x6" if you wondered.  So...what have I learned?  

A)  You really need the right tools.  When I got my long needle and my sharp tweezers, my life got better.  

B)  It's art.  You can usually fix anything with more art (like I did with the "3-D" circles).  

C)  Paint can fix a background when your quilling doesn't line up perfectly with your template/drawing (if you use one).  

D)  Cereal boxes (especially the huge ones sold at Costco) make excellent quilling bases.  So do shoeboxes.  They also make great palettes for the paint mentioned above.  

And last but not least...

E) "E" stands for Erin Curet of Little Circles Paper Quilling Facebook Page, who is a godsend.  I'm sure you will find her before this blog, but if not, go find her now, and watch and learn.  

Happy Quilling, peeps!

It's been....one week since you looked at me!

Hi guys!  I took some time off from blogging because I have been working on a new project (which looks terrible - more on that later) and because my baby had a huge baseball tournament this weekend (which was awesome because they won the whole thing)!  But I did want to share a few things that I have been up to.  First, i saw the link on pinterest about making your own quilling tools out of wine corks.  I'm not a HUGE wine drinker, but the brand I like has really cute corks, so I made some tools.

Apothic Red!

Aren't they fab?  Yes, they are a little crooked, but that's ok.  It was my first attempt at tools, and they have both come in very handy.  I have since made a lager one that can roll 1-3 strips at the same time.  It's a bit harder to get it going, but it can  do it.  Kinda handy at times.  

The best part of last week was not the tools, though.  It was THIS:

Oooooooh!

The hubs bought me some paper because my local craft store has a horrible supply.  I have learned a few things from this supply of paper.  1) It's never enough.  I have a bag of each color under the rainbow, and i'm already panicking because I am going to run out of this or that one when I begin working on my next project.  2) While I am overall very pleased with what I ordered, every brand of paper IS a little different.  I don't know which ones I like best yet though.  3) I was always the kid who LOOOOVED going back to school shopping for supplies - folders, paper, pencils, etc.  This hobby is heaven on earth for me.  I was giddy when I got my paper! I can't believe it took me 35 years to discover it.  4) My husband sent me the following email when I told him my paper was out for delivery:

I'm torn on the fact that your paper is arriving today. 

Happy for you but sad that now you will 

ignore me and spend all your time quilling :(

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!  Happy Quilling!

~kef

My Little Sponges

Just had to post a quick update on how quilling is going in my household.  My little boys are getting in on the fun.  They loooove when I take their circles and make shapes for them, and they have started their own collections from my scraps.  Too cute!

You could say we like the long blonde shaggy look here in the Fergmonster household.  

Anybody else's kiddos picking up quilling?

~kef

I officially jumped!

Look what I did!

I finished my first piece - a dragonfly!  This was the piece I was working on when I decided I was putting the cart before the horse last week.  I had no idea how I wanted to fill this little guy's wings because I knew nothing about sizing my shapes.  I laid two teardrops before I put the first scroll in on the wings, and then I realized I wanted it to be all scrolls.  I almost took out the teardrops, but I decided to leave them in there to remind me to "think things through before you glue!"  The picture quality isn't great - my bad.  He actually has 4 distinct wings, 2 on each side, outlined in black.  So, here's my own critique (and some tidbits on what I learned with this piece).   First the good:  overall, for a first work, I'm very happy.  It is pretty.  And it wasn't difficult once the outline was in and I had finally decided on a design process, which was scrolling.  Now the bad:  I mistakenly used a 1/4 width strip for the body, which i didn't mean to.  I completely forgot that the black scrolled piece I used was a scrap from a larger width.  But...it' kinda works (even in person) because it gives a little depth to the body.  There are small dried pieces of glue that you see more in person that drive me crazy.  I need a new glue bottle stat!  I also see now why quillers use needles.  I never really saw a need for them until I needed them in this piece.  I also realized that I am so afraid of making a mistake that it takes me forever to decide on a design scheme and go with it.  I know, I know...it's just paper; I need to explore and see what works and not fret if something doesn't work out so well.  I just hate the thought of working so hard on something and it not turn out the way I like or, even worse, wasting supplies.  I am still on crutches from my surgery, so if I need to run to the craft store and pick up a paper or something else I need, it takes me forever to do it. 

Anyway, thanks for checking in.  Let me know what you think about my Dragonfly.  I need an official name for the piece - something about newness or being the first.  "Genesis" maybe?

Putting the cart before the horse...

I do it with everything in life.  I am a "cart before the horse" kinda gal.  I think it's because I love to plan, plan, plan.  And when the planning is complete, I think I know something.  But I really don't.  This newfound hobby is no different.  I have watched videos, I have learned the YouTube teachers' favorite ways of doing things, their favorite tools and paper and glue.  I have scoured pictures from the interweb looking for colorful inspirations that could make unique quilled pieces.  I have done everything....but actually quill.  That's a stretch I suppose.  I have quilled a few teardrops and circles, and I made a few cartoon animals before RN school (three years ago).  But what have I done this week?  I have started in on a 5x7 dragonfly...with symmetric wings and scrolls and mosaic fillers...that look horrible!  Why you ask?  Because I thought I knew what I was doing.  So after 48 hours of frustration and do-overs, I took a break from my dragonfly yesterday, and decided I needed to get back to basics.  I need to learn something.  I know that over time, my judgement about size and shape and technique will improve.  I get that, I really do.  But I was trying to make certain shapes into specific sizes and nothing was working the way I wanted it to.  So I decided to experiment with known lengths and known starting sizes (what a novel idea, I know).  I took several pieces of paper - full strips - and coiled them into known sizes using my handy-dandy circle sizer.  Then I made teardrops and put them back over the same circle to see how they turn out (black shapes in pics below).  Theoretically, every teardrop that begins with the same size circle, made from the same length of paper, should turn out just about the same.  I did the same thing with only half a strip of paper (green in pics below).  Very different results ~ very good info to have.

This is a full strip of black paper, uncoiled just enough that it fits into a 

13/16 or .8125" diameter circle.  Certainly this could have more or less rings depending on how i let it uncoil.  For this purpose, I just let it uncoil naturally in my hand until it fit inside the size I needed. 

This is what that same circle looks like when shaped.  (Not the best picture, I know).  The reason that I think this is important (for me) is because I want to work on quilling things that should have some symmetry or otherwise similarity in size (such as dragonfly wings, peacock feathers or fish in a pond).  But what I found before doing this is that I had no idea how to gauge how large or small or thick or thin my shapes were going to turn out.  

I know the picture quality isn't the best, but notice the two on the top row, right side.  The black teardrop is really thick and not very flexible.  It's a full-size strip.  The green one was made with only half the paper, but I made the starting circle almost the exact same size.  The resulting teardrop is much more flexible and shapeable.  

So that's the post for today.  My intention with this blog is not only to promote quilling and make new friends in the field, but also to help a new quiller overcome some of his or her frustrations.  I have learned by watching videos from YouTube - some are terrible (lol) and some are terrific.  I personally think Erin Curet with Little Circles is an excellent teacher and promoter of the craft, so check her out if you get a chance!