Quilling Quick Tips & Tricks

This set of tips is based on what I discovered about basic quilling, however someone out there may have already blogged about it .

1. The strip has 2 sides. A smooth one and a rough one where the guillotine or shredder has pushed the edges in, whilst cutting it to strips. The side affects the unwind and in graphic quilling pasting the wrong side facing in  will give your work  a better appearance.

2. I think that running your thumb nail along the smooth side, making it curl with the smooth side inside and then twirling the coil with the rough side inside gives it a more uniform and better unwind. Try it and do what works best for you.

3. It is easy to quill with a toothpick and the coil looks much better with a tiny circular center, especially for making flowers. Slightly sharpen the narrower end  of the toothpick with a blade or knife to roughen it. Do not make the tip sharp as it can injure you. Lay the edge of the strip flat against your finger and roll the toothpick a wee bit so that the end curls around the tip of the toothpick .Then tighten this around the toothpick's sharpened end by rolling between your thumb and forefinger till it is wrapped tightly around the tip, then transfer your thumb to the top of the toothpick and hold the bottom edge of the strip with your forefinger and roll the toothpick as shown below.

Once completely done give it a quarter twist in the opposite direction, allow it to loosen slightly and flatten the top and drop it into my Tube tool and let it unwind and glue the end after rubbing your nail against the end of the strip to flatten it a bit.

4. I have found that making sure that the outer coils are equally spaced makes for better basic shapes. Uneven spacing messes things up, so make sure your coils unwind evenly, then glue it, make your  shapes and then allow them to unwind to equilibrium.

5. If you want swirly designs inside your shapes, make sure all the coils to the very center are pinched. Remember that all those swirls are formed because the coils is trying the achieve a stable state by either winding or unwinding. Also remember they will try to lie on the side towards the center. If you want design, manipulate the swirls and glue them.