Crafting through the coughs

I picked up a bug from my boss last week, and had to call in sick for a few days. Between the napping, coughing, exhaustion and feverishness, I wasn't fit for much mentally, but I was itching to use my hands, so I got on with some crafting I had outstanding.

I'd been asked if I could make two Totoro characters in quilling, one in pink and one in grey, for a first wedding anniversary gift. I researched, I experimented, and after creating a first design that I was happy with, I made the pair:

When I posted these on my Facebook page, another friend asked if I would make her a No Face. Now, I'm not a Studio Ghibli fan (I've seen My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away, but only once, and years ago), so this involved more research to check just what was being asked for! After that, I made a first version in "plain" quilling:

I offered to put a back of black strips on the body, and the recipient wanted this, and it turned out looking good and finished it off nicely :)

Meanwhile, I'd remembered that I'd promised a goose to someone else ages ago, but hadn't had a chance to get one designed. So, I designed and made a goose...

Which would have been fine...if the recipient had actually wanted a goose, rather than the white duck she'd asked for! Luckily, she was happy enough to receive a goose instead :)

A friend had been talking about Malcolm Tucker' sweary quotes from The Thick Of It, and how entertaining it would be to have one of them as a quote on their front door, for departing guests. So, I tested out my basic cross stitch skills to make a simple word design, and set to work. This was the end result:

I had also promised hand-drawn postcards of dandelion clocks to the people who sponsored me to do an abseil a while ago, but I hadn't had a chance to get to do those either, so I was able to make a good start of getting them done.

And today I took a trip to the Post Office with a LOT of packages, including a RAK for someone as a wee cheering thing (hopefully).

So, being sick isn't always an entirely bad thing, if you can keep your hands occupied :)

Commissions, gifts, and RAKs

I've not blogged for a while, but I have been busy! With lots of babies arriving to friends, I was kept busy making quilled baby feet canvases, so there's another half dozen of them done ( a few are shown below), some have been personalised and sent off, some are waiting for the details of the recipients (AKA for the babies to arrive) so they can be personalised.

During April, I had a lot of physical work to do in my workplace, and to keep my morale up and keep me motivated, I offered some decorated pebbles to the people who best guessed my progress at 4 set points during the main activity day.

I also had a weekend long resin jewellery making class booked, where I experimented with putting quilled bits into the resin. These were the pieces I made, ready for me to drill and mount as necklaces. All I need to do next is find the time to make these sort of necklaces properly, and then put them in my shop: these were just tests with pieces of quilling that I had lots of, or could make quickly to fill spaces.

Then lovely V's birthday was coming up, so I wanted to make her something made of "V"'s, and I started doodling...which quickly became these dandelion clock postcards, that are based around the use of the letter V in varying sizes. I really rather like the design, and have since made and given away a few more of these postcards. I'm also thinking of offering a hand drawn one of them in return for sponsorship of over £5 for a future event I want to do.

As the virtual desktop system at work had some major issues that prevented me getting on to work for a day, I also did a lyrics postcard to occupy myself: this was the lyrics of "Happy" by Pharrell, which ended up with a colleague.

I had a commission in early June for a christening gift for a friend's godchild, with a bit of a difference for me: the text would be both in English, and Hungarian! My friend guided me on the shape she wanted it in, and got a friend to do a transcription of the Hungarian text.

Then, I did a test drawing to see how the verse spacing worked.

Then a second version, with the best text spacing. I added a pencil outer line, where the Hungarian text would be going.

Once I had the translation, I wrote it out in pencil to make sure that the spacing was right, then overwrote it with ink, before removing the under writing. This is the finished dove on the slope I work on, and the handwritten Hungarian transcription I was working from.

I took some nice photos of the finished dove, but they're on my camera, and...erm...I don't know where I've put it! So, the picture above is both languages, but the Hungarian text still has the pencil version under it (which is why it looks a bit thick/odd).

This was a gift for a friend, with words that have a personal meaning for them.

I also promised another friend a gift, and they decided on a literary themed image, in this case Poirot. Thankfully, this one worked out perfectly first time!

Still on the paper pad where I drew it.

Cropped to better effect!

So, although I've not blogged it for a while, I HAVE been crafting, and I have been sending craft RAKs - but I'm sure I've missed out some RAKS from here too. So, if I've sent you something and it's not mentioned here, can you let me know? I'm keeping a spreadsheet, so I can distribute RAKs randomly, but not overly favour anybody with too many things!

Here be (paper) dragons!

I recently sold a quilled dragon on a mini canvas from my Etsy shop, and as it's one of the items I make to order, I needed to put it together. I always keep an original of anything I make, especially quilling, as it's so much easier to replicate it later when it can be compared to the original. 

 That's the original at the top, and the new one in progress below.

I like how they're the same, but they're always subtly different, especially with things with faces: the "expression" is never the same on both version :)

Quilling on canvases

It's November, so that means it's time to be sorting out Christmas presents. Not mine though: I have a few commissions I need to sort out that are going to be used as Christmas gifts, so I need to concentrate on them.

Before that though, I did a few other quilled items to put in my Etsy shop, one's a new design for a commission, and the other one I've done plenty of times before, but not for a while. I like doing the mini canvases, they frame the quilling really well, in a compact space. So here they are! :)

Rabbit

Ladybird

I suppose I'd better get back to those commissions now - I love commissions, but they can be tricky to do when you're being asked to do something that someone else is imagining rather than you!

A rather pleasant pheasant

My neighbour, who commissioned me to make a duck as a gift for a friend of hers, then followed that up with asking me to create a male pheasant in flight for another gift. You can tell what one of her hobbies is!

So, a distinctive bird like a pheasant is good in some ways, and bad in others. It's recognisable enough that it can be stylised into certain shapes and still be recognisable - good. But if it's so recognisable, it has to be done well in order to look right. - bad.

So, on Sunday, I spent 7 hours sketching, experimenting, and fiddling, until I finally made something that I'm kind of proud of!

It began with the eye and head/neck. I needed to roll two colours of paper as one strip to get the green/blue tone I wanted. I tried doing the red area and the green/blue area with metallic papers to begin with, but the don't stick well to each other at the best of times, and couldn't cope with the pressure I was putting them under.

The head then gained a white neck section, a dash under the eye, and the distinctive narrow beak.

This is what took all the time: translating that drawing there into a self-supporting multi-level 3D piece!

This is the nerve-racking stage: I know what I want it to look like, I just have to believe that it WILL end up looking that way, despite appearances!

I completed one wing, and I really quite like the "powering forward, wing caught mid-beat" effect that a single wing gives, but I'd got everything ready for a second wing, so...

I completed it with two wings, yay!

Fly, little pheasant, fly!!

And, of course, what's better than one pheasant? Two pheasants! 

I created a duplicate bird to check how long it would take me to make it again in future, and have a blank to work from if I want to do another. It took me over 3 hours to make the duplicate, so I think this one will never really be cost effective to make, unless people would be willing to pay £60 or so for a paper bird!

Round and round and round...

I'm currently doing a skills swap with my massage therapist: I get treatments, in return for me doing various things for her. Usually that involves doing her social media presence, but as her studio's coming up for its 2nd birthday, she's holding an open night/birthday event, and she's giving away goodie bags on the night. We were chatting, and she had so many things to sort to make sure that it went off well, she hadn't got around to the packaging of the goodies bags, so I volunteered to do that. Her studio is very calm and soothing, and she's very environmentally conscious, so she wanted a goodie bag that was low waste and as environmentally friendly as it could be (within reason and still looking/feeling like it would be a treat to get).

So, we decided on plain brown paper bags, striped paper bags in her company colours for the food treats,and kraft tags, with a bit of decoration on them to perk them up. I suggested quilled "roundels" or "targets" in her colours, which are the only names I can think of to describe the shapes!

It starts with me rolling up a strip of 3mm quilling paper tightly into something called a grape roll.

Then, they needed the next colour, so that got glued on to them (all 40!)

Then, roll all those strips up and glue them on...

Then add the final, outer black strip...

And finally, glue the finished roundels onto the tags for the bags, ready to be filled up and given away next week. Hope they don't get mistaken for Licorice Allsorts!

Phew! I think I've earned my next treatment, as that was at least 4 hours of work! :D

Busy as a bee

I offered a colleague at work some craft makings of her choice, in lieu of Christmas presents, as she doesn't celebrate it.

Recently, she mentioned that her Dad kept bees, and that a bee related bit of quilling would be nice, so I set to work...and made her Dad a hive :)

Something a little fishy

A friend asked me for something specific - a Pisces style pair of fish, swimming in a circle. At first I thought they meant a drawn and doodle-filled fish, but then I got the hang of what they wanted, and set to work.

So, I needed to design a fish, and be able to replicate it as an exact mirror image of the other. I sketched, and then started experimenting, keeping note as I went along of paper strip lengths and how they fitted in the design.

And...here they are, with the addition of a multi-layered central circle, to give them a focus for that endless rotation. I also decided not to glue the fins and tails down, but leave them free to give more of a feeling of fluidity.

I hope the recipient enjoys it: it was a fun challenge to make :D