A Paper Quilling Story in S, M, and XL
A couple years ago, I wanted to make new Christmas banners for our church and had the thought of making angels from rolled white paper, like really large-scale quilling. A friend gave me a big roll of white paper she had and encouraged me to give it a try.
So I made one. A really big one. Very nice. But it was too close to Christmas to figure out exactly how to use it, so I shelved it. Actually, I put it on top of my book shelves, the only place big and flat enough.
The following spring, the area outside of the fellowship room (also called “the basement”) at our church got a fresh coat of paint. Beige. We thought it needed something, like maybe a “Welcome” sign. Could we make one? How about that quilling idea, I wondered.
From time to time through the years, a fluctuating group of ladies I’m a part of, mostly from our church and/or homeschool support group, have been doing craft projects together. We meet at the church to take advantage of the long tables, and so that no one has to clean their house for company.
Recently we’ve been doing what we call Crafternoons on occasional Saturday afternoons, and Crafterhours on Friday nights now and then. (Clever names, right?) It’s simple - someone has an idea and shares with the group..
So I announced a Crafternoon, bought some quilling paper and styluses, made copies of a free printable with basic shapes, and got a couple books from the library. I passed out the supplies and we learned. We had blank white notecards, too, for creating our first little masterpieces.
Inspired right now? Go ahead, slice up some paper, grab some toothpicks and your bottle of Elmer’s, and watch a video like this.
The following month, a handful of that group reconvened to put our newly acquired skills to use on the welcome sign idea. I made the frame for each letter and divvied them up.
We started out together and finished on our own. I collected and assembled them, hung it up, and voila!
We filled the bottom couple inches with paper in shades of brown, the next couple inches in greens, then did whatever we wanted for the top part. Kind of an earthy/flowery theme. This method provided a balance of cohesion and individuality. Nice.
Back to the angel banner project. Since we typically have one banner on each side of the church, we would have to make a mirror image angel, or something that would complement the one I had started.
We decided to use the large one on one side and make a host of smaller ones for the other side. Just like the quilled letters for the welcome sign, I made the frames for the small angels and we got together to fill them in. Since each could be different, it was perfect.
Now, how to hang them. We needed something stable but light weight. Ah ha! Styrofoam insulation sheets. They come 4x8 and 2 inches thick and are inexpensive. What would be a good background for angels? The sky, of course.
As it happens, I had these two big pieces of material that is like interfacing, or very thin felt, that’s black with white stars. My husband snagged these for me from the discard pile after a dance at the high school where he works. Nice save. They were the perfect size for this.
We covered the styro with the material and glued it on the backs. The angels are attached with straight pins. These were the easiest “banners” I’ve ever made because I could stand them in front of me, pin things, and move them around.
This is how they looked side by side, but they actually went up across the room from each other. .
The black and white was striking. We made fresh-cut pine boughs into swags for the ends of the pews and adorned them with bright red bows and gold sparkly ornaments. It was beautiful.
My itch to try quilling turned out to produce one-of-a-kind cards, a welcoming welcome sign, and filigreed Christmas banners, all done with friends. One skill with many applications – quite a scratch for that itch.
