Warping wire – swirling strips – a tutorial

In my last post I wrote about how a floral wire art inspired me to come up with a floral design in quilling. So instead of warping wire I swirled some strips of paper and created a flower.

This is how I did it.

1. I used cream and brown 5mm / 3/16 inch quilling strips. Any colour combination will work – contrasting colours or of the same tone as I did. 16 strips of the brown and 12 of the cream. And some scrap paper or extra strip of cream for the stamens.

2. I joined 2 brown quilling strips with glue and created 5cm / 2 inch circle. Then I create 2.5cm / 1 inch circle, only with one strip of brown paper. I use my Fiskars circles template as a guide as I don’t hard a quilling ruler guide. Once the strips are rolled up and placed in the circle they will open and expand and you can create consistent sized circles. Glue the strips so they don’t further expand.

3. These are the 2 petals – you can see them more clearly out of the template guide.

4. Pinch each circle to to form a point – the pointy end will form the centre of the flower.

5. Glue the 2 pointy parts together, forming the outer and inner boundaries of the the petal. These should lay flat and one inside the other.

6. Press the middle of each petal [both inner and outer] toward the pointy section, almost like creating heart shapes.

7. With a quilling tool, I created connected scrolls with the cream strips of paper. You need to do this for 2 strips as 2 are need for each petal. It is also called beehive quilling technique. You slot the quilling tool approximately every 2.5 cm / 1 inch and  scroll in the same direction. You will need to remove the quilling tool to move it along the strip.

8. Bunch up the scrolls carefully so the 2 strips fit between the inner and outer petals. Randomness  is the beauty of this design – each petal should be different.

9. Repeat steps 2-8 for all five petals of the flower. Glue the 5 petals together, I used little alligator clips to ensure that the petals are glued well together.

10. I hand cut small strips of cream coloured paper to make the stamens. They measured 2mm / 1/16 inch wide and 5cm / 2 inches long. I quilled these at varying lengths and glued the coils in place. Again does not need to be exact. Make 15 of these.

Then stick 2 cream strips together. Create a tight coil, first with 1 brown strip and then with the 2 cream strips that have just been glued together to create the centre of the flower, glue to secure. You can glue the brown one and then add the cream strips. Glue this centre on top of the five petals where they all meet. Glue 3 stamens per petal on the under side of the centre of the flower. This close up shot shows, the coiled centre of the flower and how I secured the stamens to the centre coil.

 

I brushed some glue to a scrap piece of card stock and ‘scraped’ one petal on this, then I applied pressure to this petal on the card, creating a little curve on the outer petal to create the desired shape of the petal. Once I felt the petal was secure and would hold its shape, I brushed more glue on my scrap piece, slid it again under the next petal and repeated the shaping and applying pressure to secure the next petal. I repeated this until all 5 petals had been glued and secured to the card.

Here is the final card.

If you have any questions about any of the steps I would be more than happy to clarify.

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