May Love Abound

With this nativity, I wanted to capture the love that this family unit had. I often think of Joseph's gentle heart and complete faith. He loved the Christ child as if he were his own. He was the baby's and Mary's protector. How tender the feelings that were surely passed during quiet moments following the Saviour's birth.

Mary and Jesus

As I have created these nativities, I have pondered on my relationships with my own children and the tender moments I shared with them when they were infants. It has given me new insight into Mary's love for our Saviour. I tried to capture that precious moment between mother and infant in the following nativity, simple entitled, "Mary and Jesus".

Unto us a child is born...

Here is the third in my series of nativities for this year. Meg Crawford (a fellow quiller) helped me identify a really great perspective on this one. She said, " Joseph looks good. In this one he seems to be thinking about the future for all of them; in the others he seems focussed on caring for Mary and the Baby Jesus."

And His name shall be called Wonderful...

Here's the second in this year's series of nativities. I love this one especially for the tenderness Joseph is showing to Mary and baby Jesus. I also love how Jesus is grasping Mary's finger. I remember when my newborns did that and I just melted.

Keeping Christ in Christmas

It's that time of year again! I love Christmas. It's my favorite time of the year. This year I'm once again making nativities as gifts. This time, I will have four total when I'm all done. Here's the first completed one:

Baby Names

A couple of friends had new babies, so I created baby name plates unique for each one. Luckily, I got the chance to create for both a boy and a girl. The boy's name plaque has a sword, a shield (CTR=Choose The Right), and a helmet. This one measured 8"x10".The girl's one is more simple and feminine. I decoupaged the canvas with light pink roses and then placed her quilled name over it. This one measures 8"x24". I wish I were a better photographer because I think they both came out wonderfully, yet the pictures don't do them justice.

Fantasy Art - Faery Queen

I finished this at the end of the summer, just haven't published it on my blog. It's my own design and showcases my love for faeries and fantasy art. It measures 8"x10". The face is made using eight different shades of peach, apricot, pink, brown, and orange.

Fun with Cards

I had fun the other day teaching a friend and her daughter how to quill. Here's what we made:



It's hard to tell who are the novices and who's been quilling for a while here, huh? I told my friend that they were both naturals and she didn't believe me. I'm hoping to convince her that they both truly have talent and get them to quill with me again.

What do you think?

Check out my fellow quillers

I just added a bunch of new (to me) blogs from fellow quillers. Check out their beautiful work! What do I love to do next to creating my own quilled artwork? Admire that of others, of course! Just go to the lefthand side of my blog and you'll see a long list of blogs. If you know of other quilling blogs that aren't there, please comment and let me know. I'd love to add them so that I can continue to admire the work of my fellow quillers. I'm grateful to be among these amazing artists!

UPDATE:

Along with these blogs and websites, I want to make sure you all are aware of the wonderful communities we quillers have available online to share our experiences, tips, and talents with one another. It's been valuable to me to have this online community since quilling is not so widespread as other arts.

Here's a listing of some of the online communities I know of. Again, if some of you other quillers know more, please comment and let the rest of us know. Thanks!

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=566951033#!/home.php?sk=group_31795954879&ap=1

This group was started by Molly Smith - it's got roughly around 1,000 members from all around the world.


groups.yahoo.com:
quillers & quillpictures

If you're interested, you'll need to join both - one is for discussions and one is to post pictures. I believe I saw somewhere that it's been around since 1998. This has been one the best resources for me and I've made some great friends in this community. There are people from all over the world in this group. It's fantastic!


Quilled Creations Quilling Forum:
http://www.quilledcreations.com/quillingforum/

I think with this one you have to register. Not 100% sure as I don't use it, but I believe it's similar to the quillers group on yahoo. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

More Valentine's Cards

I got an order from a friend to make her a couple of cards, but once I got started I couldn't stop. It helped that my kids were all sick and slept most of the day yesterday so I was able to quill a lot of the day while they were all sleeping. I know - kind of sad reasoning, huh! But, since we don't watch TV, what else was I going to do with my time - dishes? Quilling...dishes...quilling...dishes - obviously quilling won out in that race!

Here are my newest creations:

And these, too (see? I told you I was quilling all day):

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo!

This choo choo train is for a little boy's birthday. He has a huge fascination with trains, so I thought a quilled train wall art would be appropriate - and fun for me as I've never quilled a train before. I tried to be creative with the cars, but as I was up until 2am finishing up this dandy piece (I wasn't watching the time and it passed right by me), I made the orange one kind of bland - so I added the gold accents to give it at least a fighting chance to be similar in complexity to the other train cars. I was going to make it a "name train" but was given great advice from a veteran quiller who said that perhaps something less personalized would be better as this gift can be handed down after the little boy is over his fascination with trains.