I am not much of a knitter but I do like to keep my hands busy while watching TV, something we do way too much of during the winter months. Thanks goodness for spring and summer to get me out in the yard more.

A few months ago, for my first quilling project I made some earrings.  It was fun and easy and I was hooked. I haven’t done any fancy quilling shapes yet but I keep experimenting to see how big I can make a tight quill for shaping. My latest project used a round quill that was almost 12 inches in diameter and I used it to shape this large bowl.

You may recognize the fruit from a more recent project.

Quilling is very simple. At least making a tight quilled circle is very simple. You can purchase special tools but I have used tooth picks and wooden skewers for my projects.

The only supplies needed are:

• Magazines (or other paper preferably something recycled)
• A Paper Cutter
• Glue Sticks
• A Tooth Pick, Wooden Skewer or Quilling Tool
• And for larger projects a fair amount of time

The first step is to collect your old magazines and cut the pages into slices. For my bigger projects I cut the paper to 1/4″ wide.

Once you have a pile of loose stripes, use the glue stick to attach the pieces end to end.

Use the tooth pick or wooden skewer to roll the paper into a disk shape.

It took three magazine pages to make a disk this size.

I usually work with three sheets of paper at a time so after this photo was taken I went back to cutting paper slices and repeated the rest of the steps over and over and over until I had a disk that was big enough to fit over the bowl I had chosen to shape it over. It is important to keep the roll tight enough to hold its shape when handling the piece. To do this stop periodically during the rolling process and pull on the end until the roll is tight.

To shape the quilled disk start by turning the bowl upside down and centering the disk over the bowl. This part can be a little tricky. It is important to work slowly from the center out to the edges shaping the paper over the bowl and taking care not to let the paper quill slide apart. If it does slip apart they only way to fix it is to unroll and re-roll the paper from the point of separation. You can see the video on how I shaped the bowl here.

Once the bowl is shaped brush on a layer of Mod Podge.

After the Mod Podge has dried the paper bowl can be removed and a coat of Mod Podge added to the inside.

Now you may not need a big paper bowl made from magazines that takes longer to make than knitting a sweater, but like I said I don’t really knit.  I also had this silly fruit that I made awhile back that needed a home.

Happy Upcycling,