Quilling and Paper Crafts

Hi and Welcome to our quilling and paper crafts hub

I love crafts and one of the crafts I have really come to enjoy is quilling. This is a very ancient craft, however until recently was not that popular. Today the popularity of paper quilling is once more increasing and my website stats have shown me that more and more people are using the internet to search for quilling related information.

If you are interested in checking out some of my quilling related websites you can find them at Crafty Content and M Buchanan Reports on Christmas Quilling Patterns. I also have a Squidoo lens on quilling here.

Apart from quilling we will also be looking at some other paper crafts on this hub and we hope you enjoy it.

A while back I wrote an article on how to create your own Christmas quilling patterns and was amazed at the success of this article. It did better than any other article I have ever written (and I have written plenty) and it showed me how desperate people were for information relating to quilling.

Creating your own 2D quilling patterns is really simple. All you need to do is get a basic picture of what you want to create. If you have seen the picture somewhere then get a copy of it, or you can simply create the picture from your imagination.

When you have it all you need to do is reconstruct this image using the shapes you know how to quill and you have a basic quilling pattern.

From there you can work out what quilling shapes you need to create and start working on your own free quilling pattern.

What is really great about creating your own free quilling patterns is that there really is no limit to what you can create. You can create whatever your imagination can think up in 2D. If you want to create 3D characters then you will need to use more advanced techniques but this is a great way to start.

Below you will find some books with other quilling patterns if you do not want to create your own.

Although one cannot be sure when people first started coiling paper and working with this i.e. quilling, we do know that it was already quite a popular hobby by the 1200's.

Quilling was popular with the more affluent women from the 1600's through to the early 1800's. It is also recorded in a number of older books such as those by Jane Austen.

The popularity of quilling started to fade in the late 1800's and has only recently started to regain its popularity.

Quilling paper comes in many different sizes, colors and types and each have their specific purposes and benefits.

Acid-Free Quilling Paper: Acid-free quilling paper is exactly what the name suggests, a paper made without using any acid and that is 100% acid-free. This makes it excellent for use with photo frames, scrapbooks, rubber stamping and picture framing or wherever acid could damage other parts of your work.

Graduated Quilling Paper: Graduated quilling paper starts with one solid color and gradually fades to white. This can be useful for patterns where you want this graduated color effect and will work with specific patterns.

Two-Tone Quilling Paper: Two-tone quilling paper is similar to graduated quilling paper except that instead of fading to white it just goes to a lighter shade of the color.

Solid Color Quilling Paper: This is your standard quilling paper that just has a flat, single color.

Different Sizes of Quilling Paper: In addition to coming in different types, quilling paper may also come in a number of different sizes and colors. The sizes are usually around 1/8", 1/4" and 3/8.

Origami is another paper craft that has been around for many years and is dated back to the ancient Japanese.

Origami involves the folding of paper in specific ways to create various shapes and patterns. Virtually any type of paper may be used although thicker paper needs to be dampened before folding. There are also special origami papers available that are used to make a wider range of patterns.

To learn more about origami look at the books available from Amazon below.