I am back after a long break, and hopefully this time I am here to stay!

Today is Mărțișor (Romanian pronunciation: [mərtsiʃor]),  an old Romanian celebration at the beginning of spring. People offer each other a little talisman tied with a red and white string. Symbolically, it is correlated to women and to fertility as a means of life and continuity. The tradition is authentic in Romania, Moldova, and all territories inhabited by Romanians and Aromanians. Alike, though not identical, customs can be found in Bulgaria (see Martenitsa), while similar ones exist in Albania, Greece and Italy.  If you would like to learn more about this celebration, you can find an interesting article on Wikipedia: Mărțișor.

I will keep this post short and show you some of my ‘Mărțișoare‘. For the past few days I’ve been “swimming” in dozens of red and white flower petals, trying to get back on quilling and I must admit it was strange after a few months break. Here is the final result:

And here with the red and white string:

For the flowers I’ve used 160g/sm paper, hand cut into 1.5mm paper strips. To achieve a glossy look, I coated them with water based varnish.

P.S. I really missed quilling and this blog! But most of all, the wonderful people I got to meet here!

Happy Quilling!

This particular modular origami is a Kusudama ‘Diamond’ (authors: Katrin and Yurii Shumakov). I call it ‘festive’ because I used gift wrapping paper with a nice pattern with some gold and silver shades in it. Now call me silly, but I didn’t know (or simply forgot) that this type of paper is very thin, so folding all the pieces became time consuming. This kusudama is probably the most easy and fast to make, consisting of only 6 modules. So anyone who is new to this art can venture in and make one in less than 30 minutes (with proper paper!).

I think they would look great as table centerpieces! Or simply add a string and they can become Christmas tree decorations, or even better, connect a few of different sizes and colors and make a nice mobile so you can keep it all year around. Your choice, either way, the kusudama is very beautiful and eye catching.

Hope I’ve given you some ideas for decorating your home for Christmas (and not only!)

Happy Crafting everyone!

I started working on it in the beggining of this Summer and because back then I didn’t have all the materials I needed to finish, I had to put it on hold.

My goal was to make the ‘forget me nots’ look as close as possible to the real ones. In order to do that I had to use wire for the flowers’ stems and green flower tape to conceal it. Once I got these mats I started to assembly the plant which turned out to be very challenging because of  all those little flowers which have to stay very close to each other and being the first time I had to work with floral tape… well… you can imagine! My first attempts were very messy, but once I got the hang of it, things moved a little faster. Yay!

My mom loves these blue, cute flowers, so this is a present for her. Shame on me it took me so much time to finish it, but my obsession with details took the best of me.

The finished framed picture is 23cm * 23cm. For the flowers I used 1mm – 1.5mm paper strips hand cut from 120g/sm sheet of paper.

For those of you who have your imagination with you: ‘Happy crafting!’ and for the unlucky ones like me: ‘Hope the artistic block will be over soon!’

It’s been a while since I last posted a project on my blog and I must say I really missed all my crafting friends! Feels so good to be back! Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to see your latest creations, but I will slowly start catching up and leaving comments.

A few months ago, I bought from Daiso (and now I am going to quote the label) a ‘bamboo partition with waveform lattice’. Actually, I bought three pieces because I liked them very much and I thought that they will look even better with some quilled embellishments. The piece is about 21 cm tall, 13 cm wide and very light. This is how one of them looked like before I added the paper decorations:

I have pretty much forgotten about them, until a couple of weeks ago when I did a little bit of cleaning around my work space (and I must say that my work space, even after spending a few hours arranging all my papers, boxes and other crafting items, still looks incredibly messy!). So, after more than half of year, I finally decided to give it a go and quill something for my bamboo piece.

As I was working on it, some friends invited us to their new home, so needless to say, my project became a house warming gift.

To make it more personal, I added the couple of black cats next to ‘Home Sweet Home’ sentiment because my friend loves these animals.

Here are a few more pictures, a side view and a few close ups:

Your comments and suggestions are most welcome! Happy quilling everyone!

I am entering my project to the following challenges:

1. Crafty Creations – Create a Crafty Decoration

2. Pixie Dust Studio – Anything but a Card

3. Hooked on Crafts – Anything but a Card

4. Delightful Challenges – Make it Dimensional

5. City Crafter – We Are Going 3D

6. Simply Create Challenges – Use Something Over 6 Months Old

7. Make it Monday #59

I started working on this present as soon as the parents (very good friends of my boyfriend, Lucian) decided how they are going to name their baby. Unfortunately, I finished the project while we were in Iasi, so all the pictures were taken using a cell phone, hence the bad quality of the photos.

Initially I thought of a quilled monogram, big enough to be framed and hanged on the wall, but I realised that the full name looks better when written down than just a single letter. This is how my original idea looked like:

I was planning on covering the letter ‘A’ with quilled flowers in different pink shades (since this present was a surprise and the parents didn’t know exactly what I was going to make, I decided to play it safe and chose the color pink for the letters and the flowers).

I printed the pink letters on cardboard and started the long process of cutting them. I really tried to do my best here, so I took all the time I needed in order to get this right. As you can imagine, the letters weren’t perfect, but I was very pleased with my work .

I had prepared some quilled flowers in various pink shades. I used 120g/sm and 160g/sm paper, hand-cut into 1 – 1.5 mm paper strips to be able to shape the petals.

I never stick to my initial design so I eventualy decided to arrange the letters to form an arch.

I glued all these on a A3 pearlized cardboard (I don’t know if you can tell that from these bad photos, sigh… I am pretty sad now that I didn’t get to take better pictures), then framed it.

I enjoyed so much working on this project! It was something completely new for me! I hope you like it, too! All your comments and suggestions are deeply appreciated!

You can make a postcard, a quilling picture or anything else that shows what Summer is all about: fruits, berries, mushrooms, wild flowers, etc.

This is what I have prepared as a guest designer for this month:

I started by making a few field flowers and I chose poppies for their red bright color.

I always wanted to quill some wheat and now I had the chance, hence the three corn ears.

This arrangement would not be complete without some fruits, so I decided to make the ones which I like most: strawberries! Delicious!

I used 2mm strips of paper hand-cut from 160g/sm and 120g/sm A4 sheets of paper. For the background I used a black cardboard which makes all my flowers and leaves pop-out. The aproximate size of this quilled painting is 16cm * 20cm.

Make sure to check the blog to see some amazing creations from the other DT members. You’ll find a cute hamster there!

Hope you will take part in this challenge! Happy Quilling and many creative ideas!

I also want to enter my project to the following challenge: Make it Monday #61 

This little guy is only 4.5 cm tall, that is about 1 1/2″. I used 160g/sm paper because I knew lighter paper would mean more fringing.  I am going to try some 80g/sm paper for my next project of this type, just to see if I can make the quilled toy look more fluffy.

Happy quilling!

When Piyu told me what the theme was, the first thing that popped into my head was a plush toy. Kids love those! And I remember that when I was little my very first toy of this kind was a blue teddy bear. So I did my best to try and recreate it using paper strips. I had to do a lot of fringing for this, but, except for that, the project was easy and fun to make. I was in a hurry when I made the toy, I barely had time to buy those funny googly eyes. I feel though like he is missing a nose, so now I am trying to find a very, very small bead.

I hope you like it!

Make sure to check the blog to see some other great inspiring designs from my DT coleague, Suganthi.

Hope you will take part in this challenge! Happy Quilling!

Of course, visiting people meant I had to prepare a few presents which I must confess I enjoyed so much working on them! I am going to show you now the one I made for my boyfriend’s mother.

The idea for this framed quilled picture took shape after I did the flower for the Homyachok challenge. The flower turned out pretty big and I loved it so much that I knew it will become one day a part of a bigger project. So I quilled 2 more dahlias initially, remade the twigs because I wanted them to pop-out and added a butterfly. But… I always change the design in the last minute, so this is the end result:

Tomorrow we’re going to the seaside until the week-end so I won’t be able to reply to any emails. I wish you all a lovely holiday!

Happy quilling everyone and many creative ideas!

It was a very pleasant and totaly unexpected surprise. Thank you for this opportunity! I feel honored and so happy to be a part of  this team of talented people.

Make sure to keep checking the blog and play along!

P.S. One of my hamsters wants to say ‘Hi!’