Calling all you 'quill' seekers, here's a fun project for you to try. Paper quilling a heart! Seeing as Valentines is just around the corner, how about making a loved one a quilled heart rather than a boring card this year? And the best thing about this project is you don't need any specialist equipment either, boom!
Quilling is the art of rolling up lengths of paper, shaping them and sticking them down to form a picture or pattern. It's super easy and the results can look pretty impressive!
I originally created this project for Paperchase as a Mother's Day project, but this love heart would work for Valentines Day or just as a lovely project to make with the kids.
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YOU WILL NEED
A selection of coloured paper, or thin card (I used A4)
A4 foam board (for the base)
Ruler
Craft knife
Pencil
PVA glue
Cocktail sticks
1 Find a heart template online and print it out, use this to draw round onto the A4 foam board. Alternatively, you can draw a heart freehand, or use a cookie cutter.
2 Use a ruler and a craft knife to cut 1cm strips of coloured paper.
3 Place a strip of pink paper along one half of the drawn heart, and cut. Using a cocktail stick, apply a little PVA glue along the edge of the length of paper.
4 Position the strip of paper onto the heart and hold in place until the glue goes tacky and can stand up by itself.
5 Repeat this process on the other side of the heart.
6 Now its time to create some pretty shapes! To create a layered loop, cut a 5cm, a 7cm and a 9cm strip in three different colours. Apply a little PVA to the end of one strip...
7 Pinch the two ends together. Then apply a little more PVA to the ends, and attach the 7cm strip of paper, lopping it over.
8 Do the same with the 9cm strip of paper....
9 Secure the loops in place with mini pegs until they have completely dried.
10 Position and glue the loops onto the foam board.
11 To make a coil, place a cocktail stick at one end of a long strip of paper. Pinch it round the stick, then start rolling the paper around the stick to the end. You can make these as tight or as loose as you like. You can experiment by unrolling them slightly too to give a different effect,
12 Apply a little glue to the inside edge of one of the coils, then roll it up and hold in place until it sticks.
13 You can then leave it as a round coil, or pinch it at one end to make a teardrop shape.
13 You can create 'eye' shapes or 'diamonds' by pinching two sides at the same time.
14 Have a play about until you have a selection of different quilled shapes. Snip off some of the ends of the loose coils to make shorter coils, then you can use the off cuts too.
15 Start placing some of the off cuts around the outside edge of the heart. You don't have to stick anything in place at this point, just see what looks good.
16 Continue building up the arrangement, cutting and coiling more shapes if needed.
17 Apply PVA glue to the underside of the coiled shapes with a cocktail stick.
18 Keep building up the quilled shapes around the heart, sticking them down as you go. Once you are happy with the arrangement, leave it to dry.
And there you go, an easy, peasy, loveable quilling project! It's pretty delicate, so if you are giving this as a gift, pop it in a shallow box and place some tissue paper on top.
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