Quilled Monogram Plaques

I decided to make gifts for my cousins this Christmas, for no other reason than I'm crazy.  I think they were a hit Christmas morning, so maybe I did something right.  I made 10 total, and they were all completely different, but of course, I didn't get a picture of all of them, so here are a couple.

I started with blank wood plaques I got at JoAnn for a couple bucks (rectangular for the boys, curvy for the girls).  On some of them, I painted the wood opaque white before painting the edge a color, but on most some of them, I just did a light whitewash with a sponge roller.  Then I painted the edge with one of the acrylic paints I had in my stash, and distressed them a little.

I created the monograms in Photoshop (using Rockwell font), printed them, traced the smaller initials onto the plaque, and the larger initial onto fancy scrapbook paper.

Hmm, my first attempt at cutting out an S didn't turn out so well.  I didn't realize I had to trace the reverse onto the paper since I was cutting it out from the back side.  Duh!

Much better the second time around!

I painted the first and middle initials onto the wood using black acrylic.

When I traced the initials onto the wood, I made marks at the top and bottom of the big initial for placement later.  I just Mod Podged it on.

I did some simple quilling, and voila!

After all the quilling was done, I sprayed a glossy clear sealant on them to protect the paper.  You can see from this picture that I started out doing more intricate designs, but each of those took three hours each, and I decided I didn't have enough time for that, so I simplified my design.  I still think they look pretty good, though.

The finished product included a ribbon for hanging!

Here's a close-up of one of the more intricate ones.

I love quilling. It is so fun and rewarding, but time consuming. Remind me to start making my gifts in October next year.

FYI: I've added these to my shop.

Quilled Monogram: Take 2

Remember my quilled monogram?  I wasn't completely happy with the way it turned out, so I did another one.

What do you think?  Better, no?

Quilled Monogram

I've read about quilling and even tried a very simple quilling piece before, but the other day, I saw this amazing quilled monogram on Craftastical and decided I had to make it my weekend project.  The bonus: I already had everything I needed!  Score!  I love free projects.

(For a more in-depth tutorial, visit Craftastical!)

Supplies: Paper cutter, cutting mat, pencil, ruler, bone folder, craft knife, Mod Podge, scrapbook paper, and of course, a Starbucks vanilla latte to get me through it.  (The tan and black patterned paper you see was going to be my mat, but I ended up not liking the way it looked, so I didn't use it.)

I printed the letter in a very light gray (font: Rockwell) on heavier weight white scrapbook paper.  I also printed the lines for where I wanted my mat to be.  The outside line marks where I measured it for an 8 x 10 frame.  Doing this in Photoshop made it so much more easy than trying to measure it later!

I cut way more 1/4" strips of paper than I needed.  I have more than enough for two more blue and pink monograms!

I started by outlining the letter in a darker shade of blue.  I used my bone folder to make the corner folds really sharp.

Letters with curves are wayy harder than letters without, but I managed to do it without too much difficulty.

I rolled all of my curls by hand as I went.  I really would like to have a quilling tool at some point.  I can imagine that makes it much easier, but it's not too hard to roll them up manually.  I found that the easiest way to create the design was to do the strips that I wanted to extend outside of the letter first, and then go back and fill in the blanks.  I pretty much glued them down as I went, trusting that I wouldn't make a mistake.  It was just easier this way because then they would stay where I wanted them instead of going all over the place.

And the finished product:

The white paper curled up a little bit because of the glue (you can see it puckering a tad on the edges), so I'm not 100% happy with this.  I may try another one tomorrow to see if I can get a nice flat monogram.  But overall, I think this was a pretty good first attempt (and it was fun too!).

Updated:  Check out my new-and-improved monogram.