Love is in the Air - New Etsy Items

Love is in the air - at least at my house as I start to create Etsy shop items for Valentine's day. I just added four new cards to my Etsy shop. All four have hearts in them - although only two are technically "only" Valentine's Day cards. Have a look...

I am currently in the process of creating another lovebirds project - same design, but completely filled with quilling. I am going to frame it in a small shadowbox. Stay tuned for the completed project hopefully sometime next week.

For a better look and more images of each card above, see my Etsy shop at http://www.iflookscouldquill.etsy.com/.

Love ya! (I couldn't resist adding that...)

I'm OPEN for Business

I finally listed items on my Etsy shop today (http://www.iflookscouldquill.etsy.com/). I created the shop about three weeks ago, but it has taken me soooo long to get up the courage to actually list. I know this may sound funny to some, but I've been my own worst enemy with self-torture talk such as "what if no one likes my stuff" or "what if I fail at this and waste money" (okay, so it's $0.20 to list an item - like I'm really sacrificing a ton here). But, I overcame my fears and have listed my first items.

Here is the cutest little fat chef in the world:I like him so much that I am just going to have to quill another one for myself. I really like how he turned out. The design was by my lovely and talented sister, Jennie. She is an embroidery and primitive stitching designer (artist extraordinaire, really). You can check out her stuff at her website - http://www.homeberries.com/. She is going to feature my little chef guy on her website until I created another quilled creation from one of her other patterns. Oh the pressure! (Just kidding - I love doing it and am thankful that she's allowed me to use her designs).

Wedding Memento

I know I just posted yesterday, but I finished Laura's wedding gift today and wanted to get it posted. I think I'm safe posting as I don't think she or any of her family follow this blog. If any Methenys MAY read this prior to the wedding - LOOK AWAY!



For the rest of you - all three of my blog's followers;), here's the wedding memento for Laura and soon-to-be hubby. I hope they like it. It's really simple with three silver gilded snowflakes, but I don't have time between now and the wedding to do anything more extravagant. Plus, the wedding invitation with the snowflake watermark was begging to have snowflakes flank it.

Christmas Angel of Peace

This Christmas Angel is my favorite of the three I've done. I gave it as a gift to a friend, but was VERY tempted to keep it myself. But, my heart won out and it was delivered to it's rightful owner.

Some day I'm going to actually quill something for my own house! I keep saying that anyway....

Maybe next year I'll quill a nativity or a Christmas angel for my own home. The only problem is that I would probably look at my quilling and critique it continually and not really be able to appreciate it. Maybe I should get one of my quilling friends to quill something for me and then I'd look at it lovingly instead of with thoughts running through my head like "oh, I should have been more careful with the shaping of that marquis" or "I should have glued more strips together to create a fuller look". Oh well, at least those who receive my quilling aren't as critical as I am (I hope). They can appreciate it without my "your own worst critic" phobia.

Christmas Angels

I just made two more quilled presents - this time Christmas angels.
The first isn't really with Christmas colors, but pretty nonetheless:



This second one is adapted (slightly - the wings are different) from Malinda Johnson's angel kit published through Lake City Craft. It's for the DeLunas - I think it looks like Cesar's little girl Mariela who passed away.

More Christmas Quilling

These are my newest nativities made for family Christmas gifts. I was going to make several smaller ones for friends, but time is running out. So, friends, you'll just be getting quilled Christmas cards this year. I'm not super woman as much as I'd like to be and my aspirations continue to be larger than my abilities.

This (below) is the white poinsettia card from Super Saturday. I originally had planned to have everyone make only green or burgundy, but I thought white would be really pretty, too. Good thing my mental image was right on course. I actually think that the white cards are the prettiest of them all now that I've made some. I guess it's just a personal preference, though, because when sharing these photos with my quilling yahoo group, the vote was still undecided about which color was their favorite.

Here's all the cards we did:

It was fun teaching, but I think if I'm asked to do it again next year, I'm going to teach an even simpler card. Maybe I won't teach at all - maybe Megan can do her stamping cards. Then I can actually get the other things I signed up for finished at the super saturday. But, honestly, if asked, I'm not turning anyone down. I love sharing this art form with anyone willing to learn.

Thanksgiving Gobbler

Here's a cute little turkey that I created to teach the homeschool group quilling.

And below are some of the kids' turkey creations:

I thought the kids did really well considering the youngest was 6 years old and the oldest was only 12.

You know you're a quiller if....

So, one of the ladies on my quillers yahoo group posted that she needed an intervention because all she wants to do is quill. It got me thinking that we should have a "you know you're a quiller if" list going. If you quill and you'd like to contribute to this growing list, send me an email with "you know you're a quiller" in the subject line and I'll add to the list with your name as a contributor.

Here it is so far:

You know you’re a quiller if....

....you find bits of paper in your bed (submitted by Sam)

...you find bits of paper stuck to your clothing or on the floor

...you won the lottery and all you would buy would be quilling supplies (submitted by Charli)

...you have to sweep under your table several times a day and not because of food crumbs

...your bagless vacuum cleaner’s dirt container looks like it has multi-colored confetti in it from cleaning up the quilling scraps.

...you save your scraps that have dropped on the floor for future quilling projects

...if you mess up on a project and haven't mounted it yet, you straighten the quilling paper from the no-go project out again to reuse in the future.

...every nook and cranny of your house has quilling supplies (submitted by Charli)

...you take pictures of appliques on your baby's clothing so you can convert them into quilling patterns (yes, sad, but true - I've done it - and recently, too)

...you had to buy an extra storage cabinet just for quilling supplies

...you have an addiction to everything paper crafting

...you look at other paper crafts and think, “How can I incorporate quilling into that?”

...you buy rubber stampings JUST to highlight your quilled embellishments on cards.

... your dog is looking for food under the table and comes up with "paper" scraps (submitted by Jody)

....you keep quilling day [Monday in Stroudsburg] open from 11 till 3 with
NOTHING else scheduled - lunch dates, doctor appointments, nada, nyet, nix -
except for an emergency!! (submitted by Ev Crane)

...you can’t help but look at the world without thinking, “I wonder if I could make a quilling pattern out of that.”

...you are so concentrated on your quilling project that you don’t notice that a tornado has gone through your house (in my case, a tornado disguised as a three year old child)

...you dream about quilling and quilled designs

...you can quill in your sleep (submitted by Charli)

...you have a quilling project “to do” list that’s at least two pages long – typed

...you sacrifice sleep to stay up into the wee hours of the morning to quill

...your online quilling community is almost as close to your heart as your own family

...your little son quills a cute flower for his teacher (submitted by Ariana)

...you have an addition built onto your home to house all your supplies (submitted by Molly)

...when you view real live objects, but only see patterns created by shaped coils (submitted by Charli)

....all you want to do is talk about quilling and have an urge to convert everyone to become quillers (submitted by Charli)

Nativity No. 3

Okay, so three down, three to go - at least - I want six designs total, but I might make more than one of some of the designs.

Here's the newest. I know, Mary's nose looks like a beak and Joseph's is barely recognizable. I'm working on it. I had a hard time manipulating the paper just how I wanted it. If I make this design again, I might not make noses on Mary and Joseph. Don't you just love the little lambs, though? They are my favorite of the piece. They have cute little lazy looks. I love them!


Since I'm halfway to my goal, I'm going to take a breather from nativities for a little while and do some "easy" quilling (I know it's in the eye of the beholder) in preparation for teaching down in Franklin. I received the opportunity to teach both at the parks department and at Franklin College. I am very excited. I won't start teaching until January at the earliest. I'm excited. It's a way to get my name out there and to earn a little bit of money - I'm not going to get rich off of teaching, but it will be great to share this wonderful art form.

Nativity No. 2

This is one that I actually created on my own. My first design. Aahh, I can bask in my own self-induced limelight for about 15 seconds and then I need to move on. But I digress...

I love this one because it fits perfectly in the oval opening of the mat. It's also great because it only took me about 3 hours to complete.

And, yes, Janet is right (see comment), there isn't any stopping me now. Creating designs is almost as much fun as quilling them and seeing them completed.

My very first quilled wedding gift

I made this about three years ago, but had forgotten that I had a picture of it. I thought all the pics from my old digital camera were lost forever. I just received a new camera for my anniversary (thanks Mike) and let the kids mess with the old one, which I thought was broken. My son Jaren, who's name will always be blessed (is that blasphemous?), was able to retrieve the old pictures and this was among them. It just goes to show that kids are far more technologically able than I am. I've got to take a class or something!

Nativity Scene - Straw Nativity

I'm making nativities as Christmas gifts for the family and as belated wedding gifts (they will be first Christmas reminders instead of wedding presents since I missed the receptions).

This is one of several. If you happen to be family and are checking this out before Christmas, shield your eyes! I'm not sure which ones I'm giving to whom so it'll still be a surprise, right?

Heart Card

This is made from quilled roses. I think it's cute - I made it a couple of years ago, but have had a hard time wanting to give it away because it's too pretty to use. LOL.

Princess Collage and Floral Names

This is for a friend who is about to have her second girl (Alia). She already has one daughter (Clara). So, for a baby shower gift, I am giving her a princess collage with a castle, a tiara, and a glass slipper. She will also get her girls' names - their not mounted yet - still on the cork board - to flank the collage. I think she'll like it.

Larger Wedding Borders

Since I was asked to show a larger dragon, I thought, hmmm, maybe I should show larger everything and get rid of the little pictures at the bottom. So, here goes - wedding borders:


This one was made for Mike's boss who recently got married, but had everything. Or she thought. She brought this around to all the office to show off. I was very honored. One of the other employees there even commissioned some work for me - but she doesn't need it until February, so I don't have it done yet - still working on nativities for family.

Here's another "wedding" gift (really a family sealing - temple marriage - they've been married civilly for 11 years, but the husband just joined the church last year.):

Larger Dragon Image

I've received requests for a larger image of my dragon, so here it is. Sorry that it's a bit blurry. I am not good with computers and gave you the best I've got. Hope you can see it well enough.

Also, please know that although I did quill this dragon, the original design is not my own. It is a Jillian Sawyer stained glass design from her book, "Of Dragon Wings and Faerie Things."

http://www.glassbooks.com.au/Fore-Dragon.shtml

Christmas Quilled Cards

I think it would be easier to view my quilled work if I pasted the photos into posts. So, this is the new format. If you happen to be one of those (and I know there are a lot of you out there as this blog isn't widely known about yet being so freshly created), ignore my new formatting words.

Here are the Christmas Quilled Cards.


I'm teaching how to make these for Super Saturday.

This design was borrowed (with permission of course) from a lady in Argentina. I taught the Laurels in our ward how to make this card. They helped me a couple weeks later teach the other YW how to make simple flower cards - I don't have an image yet, sorry.

Jane Jenkins design (expert quiller - http://jjquilling.co.uk/index.html) One of my friend's hubby thinks it looks like a bird swallowing it's young. We had to explain that Mary isn't sitting in a nest (although I can see that), but sitting on some straw.

I've got more Christmas cards to share, but need to tend to my mom duties. Will post more later.

2nd Blog - just for ramblings

I realize this is being redundant, but I'm telling you I can't help myself. So, just in case you didn't get it from my other posts, I created a second blog just for ramblings and the like (I'll put family photos there, too, but ramblings take priority).

This blog is now dedicated completely to my art.

It's www.hotfudgebrownlee.blogspot.com

Have fun!

New action plan...

Since I've got so many quilled pictures - and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg here - I have decided that I need a second blogspot just for my ramblings and this will be dedicated to my quilling. So, I will be in the process of creating a second blogspot soon - as soon as Dallin goes down for his afternoon nap. There just isn't enough room on the sides to share all my quilling. I might even move over the posts I had from Saturday.

Brown-noser

See this post on my new blog (yeah, it only took me two days to create a second blog - LOL):

www.hotfudgebrownlee.blogspot.com

Here I go into the wild blue yonder...

See this post -altered to perfection - on my new blog:

www.hotfudgebrownlee.blogspot.com