Welcome! I am Ligia Pop, and one of my passions -- besides the art of cooking -- is quilling.
The art of quilling, or of rolling strips of paper into shapes, is an old art, with its roots in the seventeenth century.
It is sought after today as well, because it is an ideal method of relaxation and stress relief.
The basic materials are thick paper and glue, plus a special instrument used to roll the paper.
In this first episode we'll learn a few basic techniques and shapes.
Enjoy!
We'll start with a sheet of colored paper like this, it's fairly thick, as you can see.
You can find paper like this in book shops or hobby shops. I chose a yellow sheet for today's demonstration.
We'll pass the sheet through this manual shredder (you can use an automatic one as well) to make the strips.
I'll show you in just a bit what we'll get.
A shredder like this one will turn most sheets of paper into the right-sized strips we can use for our projects.
Since the paper is thick, it's going to be a bit hard to turn the handle.
See what we've got?
We can use these paper strips right away to make various shapes.
This is a closer look at the strip of paper, it's a little less than 0.5 cm wide, and as long as a sheet of A4 paper.
We'll turn this strip of paper into a preliminary roll which can then be turned into a petal or other shape.
You can also make paper strips with a cutter (guillotine) like this one.
Take a sheet of paper, line it up on the cutter to measure a width of about 0.5 cm, and slice away.
Press on the roller (some cutters have arms), pass it over the paper, and you're done.
This is the resulting strip of paper. It's a bit thicker than the one made by the shredder, but it's good.
The strips from the shredder have serrated edges, these ones don't. Take your pick.
We'll need this instrument, whose end is split, in order to catch the end of a strip of paper and roll it carefully.
Remove it from the roller carefully, so it doesn't come apart.
Now we can turn this roll of paper into other shapes.
First, we'll need to glue its end.
We'll need thicker, quality glue. Regular paper glue won't hold thick paper together.
Apply a small drop of glue with the aid of a toothpick, onto the edge of the strip.
Press it for a few seconds to cure the glue, and now we've got a paper circle.
Now we can turn it into a small leaf or the petal of a flower.
It can have this shape, or this shape.
Or we can make a star.
I've made four other petals, and now we can make the middle of the flower.
I chose a strip of red paper this time, and I'll roll it the same way.
A bit of glue...
This time though, we won't let go of it. We'll hold it tightly and press the end together onto the roll, like this.
See how nicely it came out? This will be the middle of the flower.
We'll pull it off the roller carefully, pushing it slowly with a fingernail.
And now we've got a flower!
We can transform the middle into a more three-dimensional shape, using the end of a toothpick.
And now we've got an even more beautiful little flower!
I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time!
I'd also like to hear what you think, and if you've got any questions. Thank you!
