Quilled Tree Of Life

I have always loved trees. Taking pictures of them, drawing, painting, crocheting , quilling and even just looking at them. Each one seems to have a soul, a story ! Here is a quilled tree. This is a very special project to me . I loved making it, every minute of it was fun. It took a long time to make but it was one of those projects that you don't mind spending time on. The trunk of the tree took a long time to make and being a slow worker does not help. The leaves are in 2 or 3 tones of green so that took a good deal of time too. But i feel that end result was all worth the time and effort spent. This piece is A3 size and probably onr of my biggest quilled projects yet.

Quilled Maple leaf

I have always loved nature. Beautiful landscapes, plants, trees, leaves, flowers, waterfalls .....etc all mesmerize me. I wish I could paint! Maybe I should give it a shot. Anyways, that is a different train of thought all together :)Right now I want to show my latest ( weel not exactly latest but fairly recent ) work. A quilled maple leaf. Maple leaf is probably one the prettiest of leaves....the colours, the shape, it's somehow magical. Here is my take on it. I've used beehive to play with colors and loved it. I don't know whether you can make it out but the beehiving is really teeny weeny and took forever to complete. The outlining was fast enough. But the filling up with tight beehive was really tough on the hands .I actually ended up spraining my wrist! Until then I didn't even know that it is possible to get such injuries while quilling. Oh well, the things you get to learn!! For some of you who like to know how it is done ...here are a few pictures of the project as it progressed. At first the outline of the leaf: And then when that is done you can see how it looks ..... After that is done, I did the veins of the leaf ..I forget to take the pictures at that point :( , sorry ! So we are at the next step that is the filling in with the beehive in different colors. This is the most time consuming and tiring step. Don't be over zealous and try to rush this ....believe me , sprained wrist hurts like hell ( even brushing your teeth or picking up a spoon gets difficult), so be careful ! Luckily I can manage a lot of work with my left hand as well. So the family did not get left hungry. And finally when all is done take pictures like crazy ....before you get it framed . After framing the pictures don't look all that great and the work is hardly seen in the pictures. And finally after framing .....all set to display.

Quilled Camel

Live in a desert and you cannot stop thinking about the life in the sands. There are so many beautiful things about a desert Funny , though , when people speak about a desert it is usually in terms of heat, sand, dryness, lack of greenery etc... generally with a very dry and morbid kind of feel. Yes, I agree that deserts are not really easy . But I have seen the serene beauty of the landscape, the absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful sand dunes and spurts of tiny little desert plants here and there.It is so magical at sunset that you cannot look away. Anyways, this particular work is a tribute to the beautiful deserts of UAE - my quilled camel. I have grown up in UAE , been here most of my life and can relate to the traditions here and unique beauty of this country. It's my home away from home. P.S : Yes, this is the project that gave me all those horrible paper cuts. This paper has a very sharp edge but is beautiful to work with.

Quilled Frames

I am in love with my Martha Stewart scoring board. I just finished making 8 boxes and it was a breeze. They turned out perfect ans it felt like such a treat.A life saver really. I made these frames for an order as gifts for teachers. It was a mad rush order as I was busy with so much happening and visitors , guests etc.I has only 3 days to do it all. I was hoping that it would be liked .I was very happy when my client was thrilled to bits to see them. Makes all the efforts worth it.

Quilled Name Frame

Its been a really long time since any updates here. No I have not been lazy or idle in fact quite the opposite ! I have been working away like crazy and there is a whole lot of things to show.

But I'll begin with the latest. This one is a custom order made for a dear friend. It's a name done in Quilling. This kind of work is called Quilled Typography. I have posted sneak peaks of this project while I was working on it and it was really wonderful to have such a positive feed back from all my friends on Facebook. Really such a motivation and boost . I have been working lately on many quilled Frames and wall arts but cannot share the pictures just yet. This request came in unexpectedly and thoroughly enjoyed working on this piece. It took me 30+ hours to finish this....I know I'm a slow worker. I seriously admire those of you out there who do wonderful work in such short time. So many friends have asked to see the process , so here are some pictures which I took while working on this project. I started off with the letters first. that took the longest time. I forgot to take pictures of it . But the rest are here...

And then as I went on to add more colours and do the filling in ...

This getting to be a picture heavy post ....

And Finally it is all done ....needs framing of course.

I hope my friend like it. Always a little nervous until the order is delivered and to the satisfaction. Wish me luck .

Alteration with Quilling

And a close up of the quilling ....

I enjoyed the up cycling of this box yesterday so much that I decided to go ahead and make yet another one. The last one I made had a handmade rose by me and some die cuts. Here I decided to go with all quilling elements. I made the little African violets as toppers for this box. All in all , I think I'm going to 'alter' or 'up-cycle' stuff around the house ...my family better watch out !

A box decorated ...2

This was post was supposed to come right after the previous post but for some reason it did not appear so I am re posting it. I decided to use the flowers to decorate a box when I saw this post by Pritesh. Ofcourse, I did not actually make a box but had one lying around which I had intended to decorate for quite sometime. It's a simple one but I'm learning. This is the first time I'm trying this and I'm also entering it for a challenge at snehal's blog. I know there are such lovely and creative entries out there but I like to join in the fun.It's the best way to learn, I feel.