New Quilling Technique Tutorial - Filigree Christmas Poinsettias

Here goes!! A new quilling technique tutorial on making filigree  flowers, Christmas Poinsettias, using the much loved beehive quilling technique. There is no encircling to spoil the lacey look.

 There  are 5 main steps to making this flower.

1. Make the veins for the petals. (The petal is really a red leaf in the poinsettia).
2. Make the beehive quills to paste onto the veins.
3. Paste the two halves to make the petals.
4. Assemble the petals and make the flower.
5. Make the stamen and glue it.

Beehive Quilling with a Difference

For this flower you need to be familiar with beehive quilling since you are going to do the beehive quilling slightly different, so it does not unwind too much.

Christmas Tree Fold

What I call christmas tree fold (green)is slightly different from the fan fold (red) which are both done by folding the strip up, then down then up again and so on till you reach the end of the strip in zig-zag fashion. In the fan fold, the length of the upward portion and the downward portion, that is both sides of the V are equal. In the chrismas tree fold, one side of the V is folded longer so the fan is elongated downwards.
 Take a strip and fold upwards at 1cm then fold downwards at 1.3cm then up again at 1cm and downwards at 1.3cm and continue to the end. You should end up with something that looks like the green one.

 Making the Veins

1. Take 2, dark red  strips ( length depends on how big you want the petal) and make a christmas tree folds using the whole strip.(pic 1)
2. Shape it to look like pic 2 to form the veins of one side of the petal and glue the 2 sides  of each V together to form veins.
3. Since one  side of the v is  a little longer than the other, this difference will form the vertical distance between 2 horizontal veins. (Pic 3)
4. Now fold the unglued portions so thay stand vertical to the veins (which run horizontal) as shown in pic 3 and shape it like a leaf as in pic 4.

(Please note that I have not pasted all the veins in pic 3  in order to highlight the glued part and the christmas tree like fold.)

Making the Beehive Quills - Variation

 You are going to quill the beehive with a slight variation to make it more stable  as shown in the pic above. You can see the difference in the pic. Please note that the pics below show regular beehive as I discovered the variation when I was making the second petal.
 

In a normal beehive you ( See tutorial) you quill the sub-coils, clockwise. Here, you alternate clockwise turns and anti-clockwise turns for consecutive coils,  ( that is quill one coil using clockwise turns and the next coil using anti-clockwise turns and so on) so that you get the above paired sub-coils which are more stable.

1. You will make the leaf bottom up by gluing coil sets on both sides of the vein.
2. Make a 3 sub-coils set for the outside of the bottom vein (see pic 1) and several 4 sub-coils sets for the mid veins and again 3 and 2 for the tapering, top portion.
3. Glue the starting and ending sub-coils shut, after quilling the beehive variation and letting it unwinds a bit.
4. Glue the 3 sub-coil set, as shown in the pic below, to the bottom and a 4 sub-coil set to the inside of the bottom most vein. (Note that your veins would have been stuck together unlike this pic). 
5. Then glue the next vein to the top of the 2nd set of sub-coils, that is the one with the 4 sub-coils.
6. Then glue another set of sub-coils  on the vein and keep alternately gluing till you reach the top of the petal, where you would have glued shorter sub-coil sets with 3 and 2 sub-coils to achieve the taper . If your veins are longer cut them off.

Once done, your half petal should look like the pic below. For those who are confused by the instructions, just try to get the shape below by gluing sub-coil sets of beehive quills to the veins. This method only requires you to make veins and shape it like a tapering leaf and then fleshing it out by gluing beehive coils between the veins.

Now paste a strip to form the vertical center vein and loop it and glue to form the petal tip at the top.

Complete another half petal, (  you will not need a center vein for this) and paste the two halves together. Shape the petal and pinch the sub- coils at the edge of the petal  if you want a sharper, lobed look. 

Viola! you got your lacey petal.
 

Assembling the Petals

Make 5 or 6 petals.
You will now arrange the petals as shown in the pic above. Half the petal should be on top of the adjoining petal on one side while the other half should be below the adjoining petal on the other side. Glue them fast. You may have a bit of space in the center if you wish.

 Making the Stamens

1. Take 5,  1inch  5 mm strips of yellow and 1 inch dark red 3mm strips. Cut the yellow as shown above to form fringed petals and glue them together red to yellow.
2. Starting with the red, make 5  tiny fringed flowers and open them out slightly to form the flower like stamens.
3.  Now glue each flower at the center, just where one petal goes below the other.

 

Phew!! That's it folks!! I hope I did not flummox you too much!!

 For more christmas decor check out my pine cones tutorials.