Category: paper art

Art, Art activities, Craft, decorating, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, paper art

Paper Quilled Snowflakes!

Intheartroom

Create unique and decorative designs out of paper! Paper quilling involves nothing more than rolling strips of paper and utilizing these rolls by forming different shapes, designs, and patterns. It’s a simple process that can create, what looks like, complex pieces of art! Create a snowflake, mandala, or starburst with this method!

What you need:

  • Paper Quilling Needle/Tool
  • Quilling Paper – 5mm wide and 21″ long
  • Craft Glue
  • Wax Paper
  • Scissors
  • Tweezers
  • Pattern (download below – Print as a full 8.5×11″ sheet)
  • Ribbon
SNowFlake Pattern

Step One: We will be starting with the inside of your snowflake. Take a strip of your quilling paper in the desired color and begin to coil it with your quilling needle by inserting the end of your paper strip in the slot located at the top of your needle. Then carefully begin to rotate the needle, wrapping your paper around it, to form a coil!

Step Two: Carefully grasp and remove your coil from the needle, being sure to not let it uncoil too much! Take your coil and set it on the top circle of the pattern. Let your coil loosen up slowly until it reaches the size of the circle on the paper. If your coil gets too big, tighten it up by pulling the end, and coiling it back around with your fingers. Once your coil is the correct size add a very small amount of glue to hold the end in place, use tweezers to help pinch the end in place!

Step Three: Now we’re going to shape your coil into a tear drop shape by pinching one side to a point. We want your tear drop to fit the outline next to the top circle on your pattern. Repeat steps 1 through 3, five more times, so you have a total of 6 tear drop shapes (shown in the last picture).

Step Four: Choose another color to create the next shape of the snowflake pattern. Coil your strip and make it the size of the center circle on the pattern, glue the end in place. Next, form your coil into an almond shape by pinching each side of the circle – making your shape line up with the almond shape on the pattern next to the center circle. Repeat 5 more times so you have a total of 6!

Step Five: Choose another color for the last shape of your snowflake pattern. This time cut your paper strip in half before making your coil – these shapes are a little smaller! Create a coil the size of the last circle on the pattern and glue the end in place. Make this into a tear drop shape that matches the smallest tear drop shape on the pattern. Repeat 11 more times for a total of 12!

Step Six: Now that we have all your pieces made it’s time to glue it all together! Place a piece of wax paper over the snowflake pattern and line your pieces up on top – it’s okay if your pieces don’t fit the pattern exactly (you can see in the second photo how mine doesn’t fit perfectly). Starting with the center of your snowflake, begin gluing your pieces together, adding a little bit of glue to the sides of your shapes that will be touching. Line up your pieces carefully and use tweezers to hold the shapes together until the glue holds!

Step Seven: Continue to glue your pieces together and building your snowflake on the wax paper, lining up the pieces on the pattern as best you can. Don’t worry if any glue gets on the wax paper – your snowflake can be easily removed from the waxed paper once the glue is dry!

Step Eight: Let your glue dry completely – at least a couple of hours or longer depending on how much glue you used. Carefully remove the wax paper from your snowflake – if you have any pieces that don’t feel stable or come apart, add more glue and use tweezers to hold in place. You can leave your snowflake as is, or add another coil at the top to add a ribbon to!

Create your own snowflake designs or make changes to the given one! You can add coils on top of your snowflake or make your snowflake larger by adding more to the outside. You can also add gems, sequence, or glitter to your finished snowflake! Hang them in your windows, on your wall, give as gifts, or use as decorations on boxes or frames!

Art activities, Craft, decorating, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, origami, paper art

Origami Window Stars!

Intheartroom

These window stars are easy, fun, and sure to brighten your home! Made from kite paper, also known as colored wax paper, these stars are vibrant and translucent, letting the light shine through and overlapping colors combine to create new colors! Perfect for color mixing lessons!

What you need:

  • Kite paper – I get it from amazon
  • Scissors
  • Glue stick
  • Hole punch & ribbon or string (optional)

Step one: Cut 8 squares of kite paper – all the same size. Try various colors! I started with 4″ squares for this example, however, you can make them any size you’d like!

Step two: Fold your square from corner to corner, crease, and unfold.

Step three: Fold the opposite corners together, crease, and unfold – your square should have a crease line from corner to corner, forming an X on your paper!

Step four: Fold one corner into the center of the X.

Step five: Fold the opposite corner to the center of the X.

Step six: Fold the right top edge to the center line as shown.

Step seven: Fold the left top edge to the center line.

Step eight: Repeat with all remaining 7 squares!

Step nine: Once you have all your squares folded, begin to glue them together – the point you just created in the last step will be the outside points of your star! Use a glue stick, starting on one side of the center line, from the wider tip of your origami, up to where the folds begin.

Step ten: Place a second folded piece on the center line and lining up the tips.

Step eleven: Continue to glue 7 pieces of your star together, making sure each one lines up on the center line of the last one and all tips meet in the middle.

Step twelve: Your eighth, and final piece, will be placed with one half on top and the other half underneath your star (or under the first piece you started with) to complete the pattern.

Step thirteen: Complete your star by punching a hold and adding a string or ribbon to hang it from!

Craft, decorating, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, paper art

Tissue Paper Flowers!

Intheartroom

A fun, simple & easy project to brighten your day! Create these fun flowers from basic supplies and give your decor a fun burst of colorful flowers!

What you need:

  • Tissue Paper in multiple colors
  • Green Pipe Cleaners
  • Scissors
  • Button

Step one: Cut out circles from your tissue paper – I use a roll of masking tape to trace and cut for size. You will need approx. 5 circles per flower. I chose to use shades of one color but you could do all the same color or multiple colors for one flower!

Step two: Thread about an inch of your pipe cleaner through your button.

Step three: Bend the inch piece of pipe cleaner in half and push back through another hole in your button. Twist the end to your stem to secure!

Step four: Cut your circles to give your flowers different appearances – here, I cut slits in a radial fashion to make my flower look more ruffle like! For the red flower I cut waves around the edge of my circle. I did this step to all 5 of my tissue paper layers. *Note: don’t have cuts too close to the center of your circles – this may cause them to tear easily in the next few steps!

Step five: Poke the end of your pipe cleaner through the center of your tissue paper circle, gently push your tissue paper all the way up the stem so it’s under your button! Gently crinkle your tissue paper around your button, repeat with all your other layers!

Step six: With all 5 layers on your stem, crinkle the papers up around your button, being careful not to tear your paper! This helps give our flower some more dimension!

Step seven: Carefully “fluff” out your flower petal layers so your center is visible again. You can go back and crinkle individual layers more if needed! You can also add a drop of tacky glue, hot glue, or wrap some floral tape around the stem where the tissue paper is to help hold it in place.

Step eight: To create a leaf, use another piece of pipe cleaner, place across your stem and twist it tightly around a few times to hold it in place. Bend each end back to the stem, creating a loop, and twist it to the stem to secure.

Step nine: Make more flowers! Try different cuts to achieve even more variations of flowers, use larger or smaller circles and create different size flowers! Give as a gift, use as a gift topper, make into pins, hair clips, or just place in a vase and enjoy!

Check out other projects to make at home here!

Art, Art activities, card making, Craft, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, Painting, paper art

Suminagashi

Intheartroom

Suminagashi is one of the oldest practices of marbleizing paper! This Japanese art form can be dated back to the 12th century and it’s name, “suminagashi”, means floating ink! Floating ink is exactly what we’ll be doing to create these fun pieces of paper!

What you’ll need:

  • Plain copy paper – Just regular printer paper I found worked best!
  • A large pan of water – I used cold water in a 9″x13″ glass baking dish
  • Sumi brushes or large soft round brushes
  • Sumi ink or Higgins ink – I suggest black when first getting started for the best contrast!
  • Liquid dish soap
  • Optional: Pieces of cardstock & Mod Podge to turn your suminagashi papers into cards, tags and more!

Step one: Gather all your supplies. Fill your vat with approx. 1-2″ of water. In a small clean cup or dish, mix together a little dish soap and water (a drop of soap in 1/2 cup of water should do).

Step two: Dip one of your sumi brushes into your ink (try to just get ink on the brush bristles & avoid getting ink on the handle) and gently touch the surface of your water in your vat with the ink. You should be able to see the ink spread on the water’s surface! If it sinks to the bottom, try again, being careful not to break the waters surface with your brush. This also works best if your water is still – watch out for a lot of movement of a wobbly surface or a fan!

Step three: Grab another brush and dip this one into your soap mixture. Gently touch the surface of your water again, this time with the soapy mixture, placing your brush in the center of the ink bloom you made in the previous step! (Note: it can be hard to see the ink at first on the water’s surface, this is why I used blue ink, but don’t worry – your ink is still there!).

Step four: Continue going back and forth between your ink brush and your soapy mixture brush, repeating steps two & three, placing each alternating medium in the center of the last bloom you created. As you add more and more, it will continue to spread and fill your vat! If you’re having trouble getting your ink to float, sometimes this can mean we have too much soap in our water – try starting over with clean water and less soap in your soapy mixture!

Step five: If you have multiple colors of ink you can create your designs in the same steps above – just add in another brush with your additional color! This photo also shows a spot of ink that sank to the bottom of my vat – that blue spot we see on the left….any ink that ends up sinking, will not show on your paper, on the floating ink will become apart of your pattern!

Step six: You can also create multiple spots/centers on your surface by creating the pattern with your ink & soap mixture in various places – in this picture you can see four areas where I repeated the ink & soap mix pattern. You can also gently blow on the water’s surface to “move” your ink around on the surface. Even a little air movement will naturally do this to your ink on the surface, as well as the movement to the surface you’ll create when adding your ink and soap mixture! Be prepared to have your ink move around on the water surface slightly!

Step seven: Once you have your ink design on the surface of your water, gently place a piece of your paper on top – I find the best way to do this is to roll the paper slightly, having the center hit the water first and then carefully let the paper unroll onto the water.

Step eight: Let your paper sit in your water until the ink shows through slightly (like in the photo here or in step seven), this will only take around 30 seconds.

Step nine: Carefully lift your paper out of the water – the paper will be fragile as it’s wet, try to support it with your whole hand.

Step ten: Lay your wet paper on a flat protected work surface to dry. You may find that once dry, your paper is wrinkly – you can remedy this by placing a heavy stack of books on your paper for 24hrs (just make sure your paper is completely dry first!) or by ironing your paper flat – use a piece of parchment paper under and on top of your paper to protect from the iron.

Turn your papers into cards, gift tags, collages, bookmarks, stationary, origami, or for scrap booking projects!

Check out this method for other marbleized papers and this one to marbleize eggs! Be sure to let me know if you’ve given this a try!

Art activities, Craft, decorating, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, paper art

Marbleized Paper Valentine Hearts!

Intheartroom

Marbleized paper is a lot of fun to make and you can use the papers for a variety of projects! This is a simple and easy method for creating marbleized paper with fun results every time! Turn your marbleized papers into greeting cards, bookmarks, elements in collage work, book covers, etc. or use this same method to create your marbleized effect on things like envelopes, eggs (for Easter decorations) blank sticker/label papers, etc.! Since it’s almost Valentine’s day, I thought a heart garland would be fun but you can use any shape with the same method!

What you need for Marbleized paper:

  • Shaving cream
  • Food coloring
  • Card stock
  • Wooden skewer or toothpick
  • 9″x13″ baking dish or aluminum foil pan (or something similar to be used as a vat)
  • Squeegee, ruler, or piece of cardboard (around 4″x6″)

What you need to make a heart garland:

  • Your Marbled paper!
  • Scissors
  • Pencil
  • Hole punch
  • Heart stencil or cookie cutters to trace (or heart punches)
  • String – I Used embroidery thread but you could also use twine, cotton, yarn, or smaller thread for mini garlands!

CREATING MARBLEIZED PAPER:

Step one: Fill the bottom of your vat with shaving cream!

Step two: Use your ruler, squeegee, or cardboard to smooth out your shaving cream (this doesn’t need to be perfectly smooth!).

Step three: Add drops of food coloring to your shaving cream – I just started off with a few drops of one color, we can add more colors later!

Step four: Swirl your food coloring around with your skewer or toothpick to create a marbleized effect!

Step five: Continue to move your color around by dragging your toothpick or skewer through the shaving cream and color! Be careful not to mix too much – we want to see the swirls!

Step six: Once you’re happy with your marbled look, carefully place your paper on top of your shaving cream! I find the best method is to gently roll your paper and place the middle of your paper on the shaving cream first, then letting the sides unroll into the shavings cream. This way helps reduce any air bubbles that get trapped between your paper and the shaving cream! Gently press your paper into the shaving cream!

Step seven: Pull your paper out of the shaving cream!

Step eight: Lay your paper on a flat surface, shaving cream side up!

Step nine: Use your squeegee, ruler, or cardboard, to remove the shaving cream from your paper – try to do this in one swoop of your tool. You can place the used shaving cream back into your vat and use again!

Step ten: Continue to make more papers in the same vat – smooth your shaving cream add colors and swirl! Colors will start to mix the more you use the shaving cream and eventually you may need to add new shaving cream to avoid a muddy look!

Step eleven: Let your marbleized papers dry!

MAKING A HEART GARLAND:

Step one: Trace your heart shapes on your marbleized papers!

Step two: Cut out your hearts!

Step three: Punch holes towards the top of your hearts on each side.

Step four: Take your string and string your hearts by placing the thread through the top of a hole & coming back up the bottom of the second hole!

Step five: Hang your heart garland!

Check out other projects to do at home here and let me know if you’ve given any a try!

Art, Art activities, Craft, decorating, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, origami, paper art

Let it Snow: Paper Snowflake DIY!

Intheartroom

Cut paper snowflakes are a fun easy project that you can create so many variations with and they make excellent winter decorations! In nature most snowflakes are 6 sided, many times when we make paper snowflakes, we create 4 or 8 sided snowflakes – below you will find instructions for folding 6 pointed, 8 pointed and 12 pointed! Once you get the hang of these folds and where to draw your design you will have some amazing paper snowflakes! These can also make a great lesson to incorporate symmetry, angles, fractals, & kirigami into!

What you need:

  • Paper – I just prefer to use plain white copy paper but any thin paper will do. You can even create colorful snowflakes!
  • Scissors – Because we’ll be cutting through several layers of paper at once, be sure you have a sharp pair! If you plan to do a lot of smaller details on your snowflake, small sewing scissors can come in handy!
  • X-Acto Knives – These are optional to be used in place of the scissors or to make cuts that are not along the edge of your folded snowflake.
  • Pencil for drawing designs out if desired!

MAKING YOUR PAPER SQUARE:

If you’re starting with plain copy paper, the first thing to do is make your paper square – we will need to start with a square piece of paper for any of the snowflakes below!

Step one: Fold the bottom corner of your paper up, and to the opposite side, until you’ve created a point at the bottom of your paper.

This is what it looks like unfolded….

Step two: Cut off the single layer of paper that you see.

Step three: Open your paper back up – square!

You can make your squares any size! Try using the piece of paper you cut off of your rectangle to make a smaller square (and smaller snowflake!).

6 SIDED SNOWFLAKE: This method of folding gives your snowflake 6 points/sides just like a snowflake found in nature! This is also the easiest method listed to cut as there’s less layers of paper to cut through!

Step one: Start with a square piece of paper, leave it folded. (Or fold a square piece of paper from corner to corner)

Step two: Find the center of the bottom of your triangle (shown in the next photo) – do this by folding corner, along the bottom edge, and “pinch” your paper in the center. This way you don’t create a crease line all the way to the point of your paper!

Step three: Make sure you have your paper opened back up after “pinching” the middle point of your paper!

Step four: We will be folding the corners of your paper up on the two lines shown in the picture – you can use a protractor for this, marking the crease lines at 60-degrees.

Step five: Fold the right flap up on the 60-degree mark shown in step four.

Step six: Flip your whole paper over, keeping the point towards you.

Step seven: Fold the right flap up on your other 60-degree mark – the two sides of your paper should all be even.

Step eight: Cut the top triangles off of your paper, making the top layers of paper all even.

Step nine: Draw out your design; I like to have my design go all the way, or almost all of the way, to the top corners, and dip low between them. Then I draw shapes & designs on the edges of my triangle, these shapes start and stop on the same edge of my paper – this keeps my snowflake whole!

Step ten: Cut out your design – it’s easiest to start by cutting your little designs first and then your larger areas.

You can also use the extra paper you cut to create a square and make mini snowflakes!

8 SIDED SNOWFLAKE: This method gives your a couple more points than the first!

Step one: Start with a square piece of paper.

Step two: Fold in half, edge to edge.

Step three: Fold in half again, to create a square.

Step four: Check the edges of your square – point the corner that has all open flaps of paper away from you, and the corner that is the center of your paper (or no flaps of paper) pointed towards you!

Step five: Fold the square in half, right point to left point (keeping the open ends at the top and center towards you).

Step six: Draw out your design!

Step seven: Cut out your smaller details first…..

Step eight: Cut out your larger area & carefully unfold!

12 SIDED SNOWFLAKE: This is my favorite snowflake fold – because it’s 12 layers it can be harder to cut but it makes the snowflakes look more intricate and delicate!

Step one: Start with a square piece of paper!

Step two: Fold your paper in half, from corner, to corner.

Step three: Fold your paper in half again, with your folded edge from the last step on the bottom.

Step four: This next step can be tricky until you’ve done it a few times! We will be folding your paper into 3rds, shown on the fold lines your can see in the photo above. You can use a protractor to do this (dividing it into 3rds, each at a 30-degree angle) or just eyeball it and fold & unfold, until you get it right in the next steps! The more exact you line up and fold your paper, the better your cuts and snowflake will come out, so take your time on getting things lined up!

Step four: With the point of your paper facing you, fold the left side of your paper over on your first 30-degree mark or the first line seen in the picture on step three.

Step five: Flip your whole paper over, keeping the point towards you.

Step six: Fold the left side of your paper over to line up with the right edge, and the other 30-degree mark on your paper.

Step seven: Now you have your papers folded, cut the top triangle pieces off, so that all of your paper layers are even at the top.

Step eight: Draw your designs on your snowflakes! Keep your designs on the edges of your triangles, being sure not to cut all the way from one edge to the other.

Step nine: Cut your snowflake out on your lines! Carefully use an Xacto knife for small cuts if needed! Open your snowflake gently!

Your finished snowflakes can be used to decorate your windows – they look awesome from both inside and out, especially when it’s dark outside! I use a glue stick to attach my snowflakes to the window. You could also use double sided tape or hand them from a string!

You can make smaller or larger snowflakes with the same folds as above – just start out with smaller or larger squares of paper! The snowflakes above that have the objects and scenes incorporated into them are large, approx. 20″ – 24″ wide! They also have cuts that were created “inside” the folded triangle, not along the edge, I had to use a hole punch and my xacto knives to remove these cuts! Keep in mind when you create objects on your snowflakes anything drawn along the edges is just half of a shape, when opened it will become whole!

Use your paper snowflakes for other art projects too – like this mixed media encaustic piece! Paper snowflakes have been layered with different color waxes, pearl powders, & other papers to create a unique collage! I also cut some snowflakes from old book paper, tracing paper and vellum, to create different effects! You could also make a snowflake garland, use as gift topper/decorations, or on greeting cards!

Make this project? I’d love to see some photos! Check out other projects to complete at home here!

Art, Art activities, Craft, decorating, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, paper art

Faux Stained Glass

Intheartroom

This is an easy method to create a stained glass like piece of art! Stained glass artwork can be dated back thousands of years. Most traditional stained glass is created from cut pieces of colored glass brought together to create panels for decorative windows. For this project we will be inspired by stained glass to create a fun piece you can display in your window!

What you need:

  • Picture frame (Mine is 8″x10″ and came from the dollar store)
  • Colored tissue paper
  • Black construction paper or black card stock
  • Mod Podge (I used matte)
  • Paint brush
  • Scissors
  • Pencil
  • Stencil or template for your design

Step one: Cut out your design out of your black paper! You can use stencils, create templates or use cookie cutters to trace!

Step two: Take the backing off of your picture frame and carefully remove the glass. Glue your cut out on the glass with Mod Podge – applying a layer in the glass and then over your cut out.

Step three: Tear your tissue paper into smaller pieces – I tore mine into strips but you can make them any shape and in various sizes!

Step four: Using the Mod Podge, begin to glue down your tissue paper on your glass. It’s okay if your tissue paper covers your cut out and goes off the edge of your glass. You can also overlap your tissue paper – just keep in mind by overlapping new colors will be seen when held up to the light! Also be sure to add layers of Mod Podge between any overlapping tissue paper.

Step five: Once you have all the tissue paper you’d like on your glass, apply a layer of Mod Podge over the whole thing and let it dry!

Step six: Flip your glass over and trim off any pieces of tissue paper that went over the edge.

Step seven: Place your glass back in the frame – don’t add any of the backing, we want it to be just the glass so the light can come through! If needed, you can use some E6000, Goop Glue, or hot glue, to secure your glass in your frame!

Step eight: Set your picture in a sunny window! You can also glue a ribbon to hang it from, or depending on your frame, add eye hooks to attach a ribbon, chain or string.

Art, Art activities, card making, Craft, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, paper art

Paper Mosaics

Intheartroom

This is a great way to use up any paper scraps you might have left over from some other art projects! Paper mosaics are easy and can be made simple or into more detailed pieces of art. A mosaic is simply a piece of art that has been put together using smaller pieces of tiles (usually, stone, ceramic, shell, glass), typically of different colors, placed closely together to create a larger image or design. Instead of the typical tile and grout we may think of for mosaics, this project uses pieces of colored paper arranged closely together!

What you need:

  • Scrap pieces of colored paper – You could also use magazines, junk mail, etc.
  • Glue stick
  • Scissors and/or paper cutter
  • Piece of card stock or thicker paper to complete your mosaic on (my piece is appox. 5″x7″) You could also make it into a greeting card!

Step one: Gather your scrap papers! You can either cut your paper into a lot of geometric shapes in various sizes, or plan out a design – cutting blocks of colors that will get cut smaller later.

Step two: Start to arrange your pieces of cut paper on your card stock. You want your pieces to fit together like a puzzle – leaving small even gaps of the card stock showing between your pieces. Flip, rotate, and trim pieces as needed!

If you’ve cut larger pieces for a pattern, you can start to cut and separate into smaller pieces. You can also draw an outline of a shape or object to fill in like in the video.

Step three: Get your cats to help you.

Step four: Once you have your pattern started you can begin to glue down pieces – remember to leave the gaps between your pieces! The better your pieces fit together the more even gaps you’ll create between them! Sometimes you might have to cut and add little tiny pieces to fill in gaps. This is what give us the mosaic effect!

Step five: Keep going until you have your entire pattern glued down!

Make some awesome artwork just with paper! You can turn your finished paper mosaics into greeting cards, framed art, or incorporate them into collage artworks or even create them on wooden boxes with mod-podge instead of glue sticks! đŸ™‚

Art, Art activities, card making, Craft, DIY, Holiday, Make, Create, & Share!, origami, paper art, pop-up

Father’s Day Pop-up Fishing Card

Intheartroom

Could you even fish for a better Dad? Make him a special Father’s Day card to let him know how Fin-tastic he is đŸ™‚

What you need:

  • Card stock in the color you’d like for the outside of your card – 8.5″x11″, folded in half to make a 5.5″x8.5″ card
  • Card stock in the color you’d like for the inside of your card – 8″x10″, folded in half to make a 5″x8″ card
  • Watercolor paper – 8″x10″
  • Watercolor paint
  • Sea Salt (table salt can be used instead, however, the effect we’ll be creating will not be as dramatic)
  • A piece of a mesh onion bag (or any mesh bag you may get fruits of veggies in)
  • Tin Foil
  • Sharpies
  • Scissors
  • Paint Brushes
  • Pencil
  • Ruler
  • Glue stick & Craft Glue

MAKING THE WAVES:

Step one: Prepare your watercolor paints. I prefer watercolors from a tube and mix them with some water. I used cool colors – shades of blues, greens, & purples for my waves.

Step two: Cover your entire piece of watercolor paper with your paint – Work quickly to achieve a “wet on wet” technique where your colors will move and blend together while all your paint is wet!

Step three: While your paint is still wet sprinkle sea salt all over your paper! The salt creates a cool effect on your watercolor paint that gives us a unique look for your waves. Your paint still needs to be wet for the effect of the salt to work – the wet paint will pool around the pieces of salt, creating the textured effect! Adding too much salt can cause the effect not to show as well. If you only have table salt you will still get the effect just not as dramatic as the larger pieces of salt!

Step four: Let your paper dry completely – the salt effect works best if your paper dries naturally vs using a hair dryer to speed up the process (you can move onto one of the other card making sections for the time being). Once it’s dry, brush off the pieces of salt.

Step five: Cut your watercolor paper into stripes – you need one strip that measures 8″x 2″ and two strips that measure 8″x1.5″

Step six: On the back of your strips draw a wave pattern and cut out – you can use your first cut out wave to trace on your other strips or create a different pattern on each strip. I saved pieces of the wave I cut out to use a splashes of water later (you can also cut splashes out of your leftover watercolor paper).

MAKING THE CARD BASE:

Step one: Fold your card stock papers for the inside and outside of your card.

Step two: On the folded edge of your inside card stock, complete the measurements shown in the photo.

Step three: Cut on the lines shown in orange.

Step four: Open your card and fold in the sections cut in the last step – use your fingers on the back of your card to push the sections through. Fold the sections on your same center crease line, just in the opposite direction! Create new crease lines at the point you cut to. (The top image shows what your card should look like when it’s closed and the bottom image shows what it should look like open)

Step five: Fold your card back up and cut on the orange lines.

Step six: Open your card back up and fold in the sections you just cut – the same way you completed step four. You will have two sections to fold on each of your original sections or blocks. (The top image shows the cut lines before folding, the image on the right shows the folds, and the bottom image shows what your card should look like folded)

Step seven: Once you have cut and folded both sides your inside card is finished and should look like the photo!

MAKING THE FISH:

Step one: Gather your sharpies, tin foil and piece of mesh onion bag.

Step two: Tape your mesh to your work surface and then tape your tin foil on top.

Step three: Draw and color your fish on the tin foil with your sharpies – the mesh creates a scaly texture for your fish! My fish are not much larger than an inch.

Step four: Carefully cut out your fish!

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER!

Step one: Glue your fish to your wave pieces with a craft glue.

Step two: Glue each of your wave pieces onto the blocks you created.

Step three: Use a glue stick and add any splashes of water you’d like from your watercolor paper.

Step four: Close your card and using a glue stick, glue the inside card to your outside piece of card stock – your outside card is slightly larger so you’ll have a nice border around your inside piece!

Your card is complete! Decorate the front of your card and add a special message for your dad! Happy Father’s Day to all you Dads!

Art, card making, Craft, DIY, Make, Create, & Share!, paper art

Paper Quilling Art

Intheartroom

Create unique and decorative designs out of paper! Paper quilling involves nothing more than rolling strips of paper and utilizing these rolls by forming different shapes, designs, and patterns. It’s a simple process that can create, what looks like, complex pieces of art! Here, we’ll make a finished design with the paper quilling process that can be turned into a greeting card or decorative piece of art, however, paper quilling can also be used to decorate boxes, make jewelry, ornaments, and embellish other works of art with!

What you need:

  • Paper for quilling – I suggest a thinner card stock, typically copy paper is too thin, experiment with what you have and see what works best! I’ll be using papers in shades of blues and greens for this example, however, feel free to change up your design!
  • Card stock – cut to 5″x5″ (or desired size) or folded into a card
  • Glue – A glue stick and craft glue (I used Tacky glue – Elmer’s would work too).
  • Tweezers – these may come in handy to help hold your glued areas and place your paper rolls!
  • A needle or toothpick – these are to help roll your paper strips, try both and see which works best for you! I prefer the toothpick!

Step one: First take your paper for quilling and cut one piece that’s 1/4″ wide and 11\

” long. Then cut several other pieces it into strips 1/8″ wide and about 6″ long – A paper cutter is the easiest way to do this but you can also use a ruler and xacto knife! Take your 1/4″ x 11″ strip of paper and glue the ends together, overlapping about 1/2″, to create a circle. Glue your circle to a piece of card stock (cut to your desired size or folded into a card) with craft glue. This circle will be what we fill with your quilled paper!

Step two: Now we will be quilling your other strips of paper (1/8″ x 6″), first, take a strip of your paper and using either your needle or toothpick tightly roll the paper around it. You can either roll the entire piece of paper upon itself, while still on the toothpick/needle, or just use it to help get the roll going an roll the rest by hand (this is the method I find easiest).

Step three: Carefully remove your paper roll from your toothpick or needle (if your roll is still on it) – it’s okay if it unwinds and loosens up slightly. Use the glue stick to glue down the end of your roll. If needed, you can tighten back up your roll by gently pinching the roll between your thumb and index finger and pulling your end piece and then glue. You can use your tweezers to help pinch the glued area until it’s stuck!

Step four: Now we can take your roll and use it as it is, or pinch the ends to form different shapes to use in your project! The next few photos we’ll go over some additional ways to create different rolls with your paper!

Create a half roll – by only rolling a portion of your strip.

Create an ‘S’ roll – by rolling half of your strip and then roll your other end in the opposite directions.

Create a triangle – Start with a rolled circle and pinch into a triangle.

Create a heart – Roll half a strip, then roll the other half in the same direction, pinch the strip in the center of the rolls to form the heart.

Create a square – Start with a circle roll and pinch corners to create a square.

Create an eye – Start with a circle and pinch ends to create an eye shape.

Step five: Create several quilled pieces of paper – for my example I mostly used the, half roll and S roll methods. I wanted it to look like my circle was filled with wavy water – these methods allowed me to create that effect using line!

Step six: Arrange your quilled pieces in your circle as desired. If you have gaps you can use single strips of your paper to fill in more spaces or create more quilled pieces to fill gaps. Glue all your pieces down with craft glue (I found it easiest to apply a thin layer of glue inside my whole circle) use your tweezers to help hold your pieces in place – you can even use your toothpick or needle to help move pieces around, if you have some tricky pieces to get to!

Step seven: Complete your project by adding a small cut-out on top! I made my quilling to look like water so I added a shark on top! If you made yours to look like water some other ideas for your cut out could be: a turtle, jellyfish, fish, sail boat, sea shell, octopus, etc. Instead of creating your own cut out you could also use stickers or 3D elements such as pom-poms, shells, silk flowers, etc. The same method could also look like wind or clouds – cut outs could be birds, kites, tree branches, rainbows, etc.!

Some other ideas would be to start off with a different shape to fill – you could do another simple shape or create a more complicated outline, like a letter, to fill with your quilling! You also can just create quilling that’s not inside a shape – like the flower in the video. Get creative and have fun with the possibilities of this art form! Send me pictures of your paper quilling masterpieces to add to our followers gallery!