I am featured in Oasis Living Magazine

My interview with the Oasis Living Magazine , June issue.

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 .

A box decorated

After making the roses ...as you can see I went on and on...

I was given a few very nice suggestions how to use them. And I'm on those ideas but one at a time. A couple of more flowers in the mean while ..

Roses anyone ?

Some of my latest lot of paper roses....yummy !Honestly, these are getting so addictive :) This is my favourite one so far ! Last few days I've been trying my hand at making paper roses. There so many gorgeous ones online that I got totally smitten ! After many trials and many, many errors these are the lot I've made. Finally I think ,I'm happy with these. What do you think? Now that you've seen the roses I would love to hear your ideas on how I can use these.

Paper Roses

Did I tell you that I'm on a paper art frenzy these days. Even though I like making punch flowers , these days I'm into totally handmade roses. No punches, dyes or cutters. Plain old paper and scissors! This is the first of the roses :

I've used regular cardstock. The next one , I thought should be a bit different . Here it is :

Let me know what you think ? Which one do you ,like better. I'm open to suggestions. Please feel free you share your views.

Colourful Kusudamas

After seeing loads of beautiful Kusudamas online , I just had to give in and make some myself. There is a very peaceful feeling when you are folding these little colourful papers. As you can see I went on and on ...

And then only when all the papers were over did I stop. It was a breeze to make these pretty little cones once the folding part was done.

And then the flowers ...around 40 of them ! Told you, it's addictive. I'm afraid I will not be able to hold a square piece of paper in my hand ever again without turning it into a kusudama petal! Already the kitchen napkin , the dishcloth etc are getting their share.

And once the flowers are ready ..... just put them together you make a ball! And play around ...

The centres of the flowers were looking a bit empty so I filled them up with some pretty little pearls. And here they are all ready !!

I want to try out a few more of origami stuff but need to get more papers first. Can't wait to make more.

Baby crochet

I crocheted this little dress for a new little baby. I can hardly wait to see the sweetie pie wearing it. And since the baby has her name begin with the letter 'V' , I decided to make her a Quilled one for her. I'm glad the parents loved both the gifts. This style of quilling is not my usual type. I do more of the dolls and 3D things but I did enjoy doing this one. So much that I think I'll just go ahead and do a few more of these. I have already started on another project using this technique and it is such fun. I'm always grateful for the feed back from my blog friends. Do let me know what you think.

Any one for a cuppa?

Most of my friends know that I have soft spot for making cups and saucers. All this time I was crocheting it. Then I had to try it in my quilling as well...so here it is . My quilled set of cups and saucers ...I think they would make great gifts as trinket holders? What do you say?

A Handmade favor or gift box

Yesterday I came across this post and saw Khushboo's amazing work. This little bag looked so cute, I just had to make one. And ,of course, Khushboo gave a little nudge as well to start working on it.
I used whatever I had on hand at the moment ...I just had to make it right then and didn't want to lose anytime looking for stuff:D. I know , lazy crafter - I am ! What I liked about it is that it is such an easy and simple project and you don't really need any tools for it. I used simple white card card paper and used some punched flowers to colour it up.
I'm going to make many more of these little goody bags and try out variations as well :)

Dolls...Another quilled one.

I've been quilling these cute little dolls and I just can't stop:)The ideas are coming in faster than I can process...how can I keep track? It is such a joy to see simple strips of paper turn to so many different forms and designs. Just amazing that all it takes is twirling paper strips and gluing it!

Something new with Paper

This little Arab guy is made of paper. I first saw one made by Farah Al Fardh and was so inspired that I had to give it a try. Paper quilling is turning out to be so much more fun as time goes by:)
More little paper people to come .....check back soon to them.

Paper Quilling ATC

In the last post you saw all the lovely cards I got from my friends. And now here are the cards I sent :)They are simple cards and I had such fun making them. When you think of cards , the general idea is the usual standard size or maybe sometimes the differently shaped ones. But one thing that never comes to mind is 'tiny cards'! And that was the challenge with these.The cards are all 2"x3" in size. It was difficult at first to find ideas to fit into such a small surface ...but then once I started working on it ,the ideas began to flow.