Hello mates!  It has been so lengthy since I’ve posted, yikes! I’ve been doing a little quilling and I’ve a couple of good posts that should be written, so I’m beginning in the present day by sharing a big paper quilled peacock body that I made as a customized order for a marriage.  The stunning couple displayed this colourful body on the entrance desk to their wedding ceremony.

Moreover some paper quilling I’ve been busy with my three youngsters (wow, child quantity three has actually taken away virtually all of my free time!) as I homeschool my two women.  We additionally took a month lengthy trip to the US to go to household and mates, which was superior! I’ve been doing a couple of different initiatives at dwelling as effectively, which has left this weblog sadly a bit uncared for.  I give it some thought EVERY DAY as a result of I LOVE this weblog!  I really like this area the place I can share my quilling, share tutorials and suggestions, and extra.  On the similar time I would like to simply accept that there are such a lot of hours within the day.  I’ll proceed to replace this weblog, simply not fairly as usually as I used to be the primary few years, and hopefully in one other yr or two I’ll be capable to get again to devoting extra time to it.

Within the meantime, I hope you get pleasure from this peacock challenge!

The way it Began

So this couple messaged me asking me if I do customized initiatives they usually informed me what they had been searching for. They needed a pair of peacocks together with some particular textual content that they requested.  So I got here up with 5 sketches of varied peacock designs (the tails had been all very completely different).  I’m solely sharing those they selected as I’d need to use my different ones for designs sooner or later 😉  It was quite a lot of enjoyable getting my markers out and making the sketches.  I’m not one of the best at drawing, and I didn’t need to spend hours on the sketches, but it surely was enjoyable arising with completely different tail designs.

The couple selected the tail from the photograph on the left above, and the physique from the one on the appropriate.  They favored the best way these two our bodies got here collectively to make a coronary heart.  They had been all concerning the romance on this design! Who can blame them 😉

Time to Get to Work!

I began the challenge by inserting the physique sketch beneath the plastic sheet on my workboard (I put a recent plastic cowl on my dependable workboard.  Click on right here to see how I do this). I put pins across the physique and wrap the define paper round it.  I needed the paper to be sturdy, so I glued two strips collectively.  When you have cardstock or on edge quilling strips (you will get them right here from Little Circles) it’s a lot simpler!  However I didn’t have that colour in card inventory strips, so I simply doubled up.  Nonetheless labored!

My subsequent step was to make the tail items.  I attempted a number of completely different strategies, however lastly settled on utilizing this quilling board with pins to make the tail items.  I’ve extra photographs of this course of, so I’ll submit them in my subsequent submit particularly about utilizing that device.  It was my first time utilizing it and I liked it!

Subsequent I made some double layer magenta quilling strips to make some hearts.  Right here is how I made my hearts, I made a number of completely different sizes:

1. Reduce a strip of paper and fold it in half.
2. Use a quilling device to barely curl both sides inwards
3. Pin the underside and sides in place.
4. Curve one aspect inwards and use a pin to carry it the place you need it.
5. Bend the second aspect in to satisfy the primary.  Alter as wanted till the center is the form that you just like.
6. Dab some glue the place the 2 edges meet and let dry. I like to make use of PPA matte in order that there is no such thing as a shiny residue as soon as the glue is dried.  It does take a while to dry totally, although, so be affected person.
7. As soon as the center is dry, decide it up and use positive tip scissors to trim any extra from the midpoint of the center the place the 2 edges met.
8. I needed a background colour on the center, so I glued the center to pink paper and lower round it with positive tip scissors and an exacto craft knife.

I needed some extra items that had colour background.  I’ve seen different quilling artists do that model, however I do not know how they do it.  I figured the best approach with small shapes like this may be to attach the form onto the background paper after which lower it out.  It turned out to be each tougher and simpler than I anticipated.  The tough half was reducing out the hearts!  With the curves and angles, it was fairly difficult.  I couldn’t simply use the positive tip tweezers.  I needed to additionally use an exacto knife to get into the highest crevice half.  I put the form down on a self therapeutic mat (you may see it within the photograph under, I’ve been utilizing it for about 17 years) and used the exacto knife to trim the locations that I couldn’t get clean with the scissors.  Afterwards I assumed perhaps an alternative choice would have been to hint the center onto the background paper, lower it out, after which glue the form onto the background.  I’ll attempt that one other time!

With the small circle and teardrop shapes, it was fairly simple to make use of the positive tip scissors to only shortly lower across the form evenly and easily.  To make these teardrops I used dowels (I take advantage of these superior bamboo dowels from Little Circles) and a Border Buddy to make open circles.  Then I pinched them into teardrops earlier than gluing them to the background paper.

I made the entire stable items and positioned them within the peacock define as I needed.  I then made a bunch of scrolls to fill within the areas.

For the tail I positioned the colourful items I had made the place I needed after which made unfastened scrolls for filling up the area.

The body that I used was from Ikea, I’m fairly certain it was 30x40cm with out the matte.  It already has the inset shadowbox body, which makes it helpful!  Listed below are some related dimension (16×20 inch) shadowbox frames on Amazon.

The couple was pleased with the paper quilled peacock body design (it made me tremendous nervous to see how the couple favored the ultimate product because it was such a giant challenge for me to complete!).  I had been sending photograph updates all through the challenge so I may make tweaks within the design and colours as they desired.

That is the largest challenge I’ve completed to date!  Probably the most rewarding a part of making this paper quilled peacock body was seeing the ultimate product after all!  Probably the most difficult was ensuring that it was what the client needed, as sure components can’t be undone simply as soon as they’re glued on!

After ending this I went on to make my first mosaic challenge, a marriage present for my sister.  So keep tuned for photographs of that challenge, and for an additional mosaic after that!

Have you ever completed any giant initiatives?  What did you discover rewarding?  Difficult?

I hope you loved this submit for my paper quilled peacock body, let me know what you assume!  And stick round, there may be tons to see on the weblog!

*All merchandise and provides talked about on this submit I bought and/or made by myself.

*This submit comprises some affiliate hyperlinks (Amazon), and a few non affiliate hyperlinks.  If you buy merchandise by the affiliate hyperlinks I get a small proportion (at no further price to you!).  I solely hyperlink to merchandise that I imagine in and/or love to make use of myself.  Thanks for supporting my weblog!