Tulips (VIBGYOR) with new background

Recently I purchased a set of card-stock with texture print and I liked them a lot.. Redone a previous project with this background..

 

Enjoy the little things

                                                          

My motto for life - "Enjoy the little things".. In these busy days, in the rat race to achieve the goals, we tend to forget the little things in our life.. I loved this ever since I came across this line.. This has been the theme for this arrangement.. The cacti & pots are made from paper.. The green plants are miniature version of the snake plant & zig-zag cactus. The pots are curtain holders which I picked from walmart in my recent US trip..painted them white & kept miniature paper flowers..The shelves were made from the cardboard wrapped in a left over cloth from my dress..

Closer look..

Orange wild-roses

These days, I'm addicted to working with 1.5mm strips..One fine day, when I was looking around my quilling frames, I realized that I didn't have anything made in orange..I do have some orange strips, but 3mm wide.. That could be the reason why I never pick them.. Now that I understood how to work with thinner strips, I picked these & cut them to 1.5 mm strips.. Came across these wild rose (simpler version of rose) and found them simple to prepare with paper.. I had to go around the community to search for the leaf template and finally a friend of mine has offered me to pluck leaves from her garden.. So, I cut the leaves in exact shape/size and painted them in similar tone of green..Here comes the final arrangement - 

Bluebell flowers

 

Well.. I came across blue bell flower pictures in shutterstock and the moment I saw, I decided to give it a try with quilling. Initially, I made 6 long petals & have pasted them in two circles - one inner circle with 3 petals and the in-between space filled with petals from outer circle.. And I had sent the pic to my sister for review. She didn't like that arrangement and suggested to make one circle with 5 petals.. I too liked this one much better than the previous one with 6 petals. So, I went ahead with this - made few buds too..The struggle came in making the leaves. I've tried quite a few variations. They didn't look natural, rather gave a spider cob & octopus look.. So, took away some leaves and finally retained only 6.

Scarlet flower arrangement

                                         

Freshly arranged and shot today..

Here is a glimpse into making of this. 100 quilling strips were used for making the flowers & green felt paper for leaves. They were stemmed to create 3D effect.

Cherry Blossom 3.0

                                           

Yes.. This was my third cherry blossom arrangement. First one was a gift to a friend's daughter. Second one is sitting pretty in my sister's home. This one is third one and I've hand cut around 100 strips, each one 1.5 mm wide. Struggled a bit to get the paper for making the leaves. But, finally found it in a nearby stationary shop. 

Here is a glimpse into the making of this - 

Scrabble & Quilling

                                          

Scrabble has always been my favorite board game since childhood. In recent past, I developed interest & has been doing quite a lot of quilling. One fine day, the idea of mixing both popped up and I started working on this. I was never focusing much on the background so far. One night, I was talking to my sister and she gave me an idea to use some rustic 'or' wooden textured backgrounds and even forwarded few links in amazon. However, I could not wait till I get time to browse through and place the order. First thought that came to my mind the next morning was to use some unused cloth pieces. This one is a blouse piece from a linen saree (which I've left unstitched, as it might not withstand the stitch). After many permutations of the letters & caption - here comes the final frame.

I've listed 10 family quotes and the family voted and picked this one.

 

Home..Sweet Home

 Positive effect of lock-down - increased family time & bonding.. & this idea popped up..

 

Lavender flowers

 Reorganized an old bunch of flowers in light & dark lavender color - made with tight coils.

Tulips in rainblow colors

Well, this is my fourth Tulips quilling frame. Here are my first, second & third tulips arrangements. If I consider miniature as well, then this becomes my fifth one.
As mentioned in my previous posts, my love for Tulips started in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In my recent visit to my sister's place, we happened to visit Dallas arboretum.  Tulips were in full bloom and I was astonished to see the wide variety of Tulips.
Probably, that picture might have registered in the back of my mind and silently inspired me to pick this Tulips project in rainbow (VIBGYOR) colors.

Each flower needs 4 petals and each petal was made with 6 strips. So, a total of 96 strips need to be worked up on. This involves 7 colors => 672 strips.. It took awfully lot of time to prepare the flowers. Stemming and then covering the floral wire with crepe paper is one big task. The leaves again had to be cut from crepe paper and stemmed carefully. It's been really long since I made a paper quilling butterfly. So, I wanted to add one here. Here comes my Tulips arrangement with ~700 strips. Though it was tiresome, I liked the final outcome.

 

A closer look at the butterfly

Quilling sunflower

M previous sun-flower was taken by my mother-in-law.. Here goes one for me:

Salute to the brave fighters of COVID-19

On the day, when PM Modi asked all the Indians to come out and clap to show gratitude to the brave fighters of COVID-19 i.e; doctors, medical staff & police - I was doing this and thought that this is my gift for them.

 

Tulips for wedding

Here comes a quilling frame, for my brother & sister-in-law on their wedding.
Happy married life Koushik & Swapna !

Quilling Frangipani

This has been in my mind for the past many months. As I go for an evening walk, these trees in the colony remind me of my yet-to-start quilling frangipani project..I attempted to make flowers with 2mm strips..I'm not so happy with the way they turned out to be. So, I left them behind for few months. Afterwards, I took 3 mm strips and cut them manually into 1.5mm strips. The flowers turned out to be okay, but I'm not happy with the yellow tint which I painted in the middle..So, I had to leave them behind. After searching for a while, I got light yellow water color & this looked better. Next comes another hurdle..this time, it was the leaves. I was not too sure if I should quill the leaves too 'or' use some handmade paper..Finally, it was a mix of handmade paper + some crayon color on top of it. I am sooooo happy with the final outcome.

Quilling hibiscus in frame

Quilling hibiscus flowers in a frame..More than flowers, it is the leaves that gave me a hard time. I tried many options like - paper leaves painted in green & shades. I was not satisfied and finally I had to fall back on quilling for the leaves.

Tulips

My third tulips project.. I've chosen only the family of blue this time..

The bloom shop

Here is my latest version of an earlier florist shop. It makes me feel really sad to see these miniature flower pots being exposed to dust & dirt. I've got a shadow box frame from my last visit to IKEA and thought of moving these pots inside the shadow box. The existing shop doesn't fit. So, I had to make another one out of card stock and arrange these flowers inside it. With the help of my younger son, we named this as "The bloom shop".. I'm so glad that my miniatures are safe and dust free.

Yellow quilling flowers..on the way..

These days, I've been going for an evening walk with my neighbors. Our colony has got lot of trees which are blooming to the fullest. Especially, during the dusk, they look more beautiful & I just can't express the beauty in words. I couldn't stop myself from quilling these little yellow flowers.. The journey has just begun.. Dear Mother Nature, as always, you continue to inspire me :)