Quilling jewelry-earrings-part 1

     Another chapter of my evolution in quilling art was to start making some jewelry and the first thing passed through my brain were the earrings so, I started making some. I will just let the first series of the pictures to speak for me.
     Enjoy!

Handmade tool... , for handmade products.

     Today I was playing with a piece of cardboard and suddenly I had a revelation, I've seen a quilling comb so I start to put in practice this simple idea.by introducing bamboo sticks into the cardboard, cutting them at the same level (even I didn't glued them), make some reinforcements on each side using the same cardboard, and that's it, I have a quilling comb without any investment, just using some stuff I had around.
     After that I started testing my new tool by practicing some different shapes like in the picture below.
     Enjoy!

Army of... ,roses.

     Sometime last summer I was making roses for a couple of days for some special needs and in the end I took some pictures with them just for fun. I've got a big army of roses to play with, to atack the cards, the quilling walls, the earrings, fridge magnets, etc. So I'll let you see the pics. Enjoy!

Minidioramas, new look.

     You've seen so far the two minidioramas I've posted here on the blog, they were open with full acces at all their elements. After an idea one of my friends cames with, putting them into a full glass enclosure, he helped me with some indications and then he let me to do the hard work (to grind the glass) .The gass panels were glued together with silicone aquarium. The shooting sesion before and after looks like bellow. 
     Enjoy!

The first quilled Easter egg.

     It was in my plans to post some other thing today but yesterday the madness catched my minds, asking me to make a quilled Easter egg so, in consequence of that I will present you the result. The dimensions for the egg are 4.5x6 cm and for the suport 3 cm height and 4 cm in diameter. I sprayed them with vernice. I am not quiet happy with it but so far it is ok, I become more familiar with the way of making such an object. I will not write to much to give the pictures a chance to speak for themselves.
     Enjoy!

Paper strips storage.

     The time to show you the way I keep stored my quilling paper strips came now. I initially started with 32 colours A4 paper size, 120 g/sqm so I made my storage stand according to this number of colours and by the time passing the needs for extracolours increased but unfortunately so far I did not extended as well with another stand for the over 40 colours I am using right now.
     I keeped at home some 25x25 cm, 3 mm linden plywood for fretwork for some other purposes and I thought that, one of these will be the right choice for my stand. After the measurements I decided to use both sides of it, making 16 separations on one side and another 16 on the other side. I cuted some 5x2x10 mm
wood moldings from 5x2x300 mm (96 pieces), I meassured 3 rows on each side of the linden plywood for fretwork, placing a small piece with the 2mm side at 15 mm distance on each row and I glued them in the position, then, on top of those I placed all way long a wood molding. I followed the same steps on the other side of the linden plywood for fretwork. On the bottom side of the stand, I applied on each side another 5x2 wood molding to prevent the paper strips fall out. In each compartment can be stored 3 to 5 mm wide strips comming from an A4 paper size, 120 g/sqm so, each time I cut a paper there will be enough space to store all the strips in one compartment. 
     After I filled up the stand with all 32 colours of paper strips I had, the next step was to mark each colour location on the bottom molding, with 3x15 mm paper strip to have allways a clear view of the colours order and there position. 
     And that is it!
     Enjoy!

Electric quilling tool tutorial

     As I promissed to you I will make a description, following all the steps I've done to build the electric quilling tool.
     The purpose of this tool was to be as cheeper as possible, easy to use and to increase the quality and the speed of my work. There was a possibility to convert a rotary tool, with adjustable speed but for me was not a good idea becouse the switch was not in a confortable position for me (usualy is like that on all the rotary tools, they have another purpose, should be kept in a different way), was not the way that I planned to be so I quit very fast this way. The best way was to use some things I already have at home to start a new project to create a new specialized tool for my quilling. According to what I said in the previous sentence, I've search inside my house, all around my stuff to find something can be used and I found as follow:

     - a motor (can be one from an electronic device out of use, a CD drive, a cassete recorder, or else). The one in the picture is not the same I used but is just to show you what kind it can be. The most important thing is that the motor should be functional, in good shape. The one I have used is 2 cm in diameter and 3 cm in longness, powered by direct curent 5 Volts.

     - the next important thing afer I found the motor was to find a way to suply it and this charger (5 volts DC) was the perfect choice, I test it and everything was OK.

     - an empty glue tube (must have an apropriate diameter with the motor, I was lucky to find this, the motor fitted perfect inside the tube). Another important thing is that the tube will become a tool so must be confortable to be kept in the hands. The tube was cutted on the cover side, aproximately at the level of the cover, before the diameter starts to shrink  to make place for the motor which will be introduced inside it from here to the other end (left side in the picture, like bottom of the tube) where I made a hole to give the motor axis the chance to come out, then I wash it very very well to remove any stains of the glue was inside.

     - some wires to make the links between the parts (motor, switch, charger)

     - the switch, must be easy to use, the need was for a one just to be pressed with the finger very thin then released to stop. The perfect one was inside a mouse out of use.

     - I marked with an arrow one of the switches from the mouse wiring board, there were three of them, the one I removed was on the left side of the one I marked, the same type, small, thinn, as I wanted it.

     - the nezt step was the wiring, shoul be connected all the electric parts (motor, switch, charger) using soldering gun, mounting the switch on the exterior of the tube in a confortable position.
     Very important when wiring should be checked the proper way of rotation of the axis in order to make the paper coils in the same was as with the pin.
     - conect a plastic pin on the axis outside the tube and... here is the tool.

     - but... there was one more thing, there was no way to catch the paper strip before  coil it, so there was an easy task using a

     - saw for fretwork with a fine bamd.

     - is not perfect cut but the channel is ok.
This is not an extraordinary tool, is just an improvisation, a handmade/homemade tool used to make another handmade products.
     Making this tool was to demonstrate that we do not need always to have factory products as our tools or to order some expensive ones, if we have the skill we can make one. I use to make a lot of things at home which make our life easyer and more bautifull.
     I hope you enjoy this story and, who knows, someday you can have a similar one build it by yourself.

Thank you for the patience to read all the stuff here.

Electric quilling tool demo

     This evening I was working hard to build the new electric quilling tool which I had in my plans. I will present you a short demo I've done during the tests I made, more tests will be done tomorrow and in the next days, so far the prototype is working fine. I will give you the description of it as well in a future post. Enjoy!

Basket with flowers

     First of all I would like to apologize to all my followers for this long gap in posting, I was far from the blog for a long time, being busy making "martisoare", presents for 1st of March and for 8th of March (International Women's Day) and as well making preparations and participate at the two week ends of handmade market "ILoveHandmade" at Palatul Şuţu in the downtown Bucharest.
     As wel there were couple of orders I had to onorate, all of them came in a short time, one of them I will present it to you today, called "Basket with flowers".
     The first problem I encounted it was that I did not have the proper basket, there was a 15 cm regular wicker basket in my house, bought for some other purpose, without handle as per requirement of the client, so I was searching for a solution, I did not find in the stores I've been, so, I found some balsa wood, I cuted a 2 cm wide strip then I put it in the water to make easier giving the desired shape. I prepeared the basket, making two layers of cardboard inside to make the suport for the "topping", I mean the quilled flowers. I'll let the pictures speak for themself. Enjoy!