Paper quilling is a great way to sprinkle some love onto your wedding invitations, scrapbooks, thank you notes, and love letters. Lately, the art has seen a surge in popularity. When I first started, I had to rummage through scraps to find materials. Today, you can walk into an art supply store and find just about everything necessary to begin quilling.

Rather than just sharing generic instructions on how to quill, I thought I'd share a personal story from a recent quilling experience, intertwined with tips and tricks on how to make your next quilling project the center of attention for whatever its purpose. All of the important quilling tips from this story are in bold.

I recently taught my friend Carolyn the art of quilling. She wanted to surprise her daughter (and me!) by quilling custom designs on each of her daughter's wedding invitations. One night I got a call, and Carolyn was frantic. 'You have to get over here now, I might have ruined Laura's wedding invitations,' she said. I could tell she was really upset, so I told my husband he was going to just have to figure out dinner without me, and headed over to Carolyn's.

Bless her heart, she had completed quilling two of the invitations and was half way through a third when I got there. The problem was, they looked awful! I immediately identified Carolyn's biggest mistake; she used too much glue! The golden rule of quilling is that a little glue goes a long ways.

Luckily, Carolyn only had to send out 45 invitations. Laura and her fiancee (Brad, who is finishing his medical residency) ordered 50 wedding invitations, so it was okay to scrap the three that Carolyn ruined.

It didn't take long for me to spot another mistake with the invitations-gone-bad. Carolyn was using very thick paper, almost like construction paper. When it comes to paper selection for quilling, the thinner the better. When you begin to roll the paper, thick, course paper tends to crease rather than curve. Many of the designs in Carolyn's invitations had unsightly seams in places that were supposed to be curved!

Carolyn's final mistake had us both laughing so hard we cried. I said, 'Carolyn, honey, why don.t you put one of those completed invitations in its envelope'. As she started to do so, she realized it wouldn't fit. She had made her paper-cuts so thick that the envelope wasn't big enough to handle the quilling designs! I think Carolyn needed a good laugh, though. She was really stressed out from planning all of the details from the wedding. Her problem was solved simply because she learned to, have an awareness of how thick your quills are and whether or not that thickness complies with the goal of your quilling project. For the improved invitations we made her quills 1/8" in width; small enough to fit in an envelope.

This situation had a happy ending. Carolyn was willing to let me handle the situation, so I drove us to our art supply store and we purchased paper meant for quilling, a needle tool (makes rolling the paper easier than hand-rolling), and different type of glue than she was using (make sure the glue dries clear).

Since it was a June wedding, we went with a flowers theme. Flowers are not only beautiful, but very easy to quill! We used raindrop shapes for the pedals. To make a raindrop shape, simply coil the paper tightly, and set it down to release its tension. When it is at the desired size, glue the end of the strip while pinching it with your fingers to make the 'raindrop' effect. Of course, for the center of the flower, we made the quill circular instead of raindrop. This is done the same way as the raindrop, only you don.t pinch it while you glue it!

By the end of the night, Carolyn was quilling as well as I do. One thing that makes quilling so fun is that it is easy to learn, so even if you.re having troubles, stick with it! The look on Laura.s face when she saw all of the completed invitations was enough to make the whole project worthwhile. Happy quilling!

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