New Activities - Month Seven

[smallhobbit]

On Thursday afternoon I went to Nature in Art for another of their Dare to Dabble sessions.  This time the craft was quilling, which, for those of you who haven't heard of it, involves making pictures with curled strips of coloured paper. 

It turns out the basics are quite easy, and once we'd had a bit of practice we were able to make cards by putting together the different colours and shapes.  It's quite absorbing and making a card takes time because each quill has to be made separately.

It has a similar appeal to me as cross stitch does and it something I could certainly see myself doing more of at some point.  A basic quilling tool (for curling the paper) and papers aren't expensive and it seems a good way of making handmade cards.  As with most things the more complicated the work, the more expensive the tools etc.

The Christmas card I made, with a close up showing the individual strips:

 

Comments

[smallhobbit]

I can imagine some of our oldest Brownies would produce some good pictures. We'd use ready cut strips - we've learnt to prepare as much as possible in advance. And then there's the concept of 'use a very little glue' which doesn't always compute! It's certainly something to keep in mind when we're looking for a different craft to do.

[moth2fic]

I think 'use very little glue' can be counterproductive for quilling. Some children take the admonition very seriously and then, of course, the quills don't stick, or only stick temporarily. A word of warning. I recently found a sample card I'd made about ten years ago - half the quills had fallen off. So don't try to produce heirlooms!