Mum's the Word!

Since yesterday a couple of people contacted me by e-mail and asked about a tutorial for the mums. I am in the midst of straightening my workroom, once again. I decided to just say yes to the request. That lets me off the hook for the day as far as reporting on the basket shop.


So here goes! Keep in mind that all of the photos are way larger than the real thing. To make mums from quilling paper you need quilling paper. It should be 3/16" wide or larger. You could make it from smaller, but it would be awfully knit picky.

You also need a small pair of sharp scissors, a needle tool and some glue. I use Aileen's fast grab. That's it.

The first thing you do is fringe one edge of the paper with the scissors. the fringing doesn't have to be perfectly regular. If you really wanted these to look good, you would make them exactly the same and round the edges of each fringe end......I am not that crazy! I am more likely to just tell people that they are fake miniature flowers. In the real world people use big paper flowers for decoration all the time. I don't see why mini people can't do the same. If you want to make them look like the real thing go ahead and round the tips and be sure to curl each individual tip.......As I said before, I am not that crazy!

After you have decided to take the easy way out, grab your needle tool. Place the end of the paper in between the prongs and put some glue on the back edge of the end. When you roll it around toward yourself the glue will automatically catch onto the next layer of paper. I unrolled the flower so that you could see where I placed just a little glue in the center of the strip at the bottom. That's all you need. You don't have to do it on the whole strip. Tightly wrap the strip around itself, jelly roll fashion. When you get it as large as you want the flower, cut it off and glue down the end.

I usually fringe a whole strip at a time. That will make a lot of flowers. You can vary the size.

Before you take it off of the needle tool, use your fingernail to pull the petals outward all around. Then gently pull it off. There will be a hole in the center. You can put a stamen in there if you want with a piece or two or thread. I don't usually bother. No one looks at the bouquet and says "Hmmmm.....She forgot the stamen.". At least they don't have the nerve to say it to my face.

You will find that the back of the flower is pretty flat and rigid. That's why I usually just glue them on the floral foam and stick a few leaves here and there. If you really want to, you can put them on a wire stem by gluing it into the center hole from the back. I prefer the first method for these particular flowers.

If you want to make leaves, just take a piece of the green quilling paper and cut a curve at a 45° angle to the edge of the paper. Then cut another one on the opposite side making a pointed oval shape. I just stick these in between the flowers here and there to fill in.

You will need some kind of pot or vase to put them in, but that doesn't really count as part of the process. In the case of the terracotta pot in the photo, I just used a plain round pot and stuffed it with dry floral foam. I glued the flowers on the foam starting at the top with a large flower and filled it in with various sizes and colors until I got to the bottom edge. Some of the flowers are actually stuck half to the foam and half to the pot, thus giving the illusion of some of the flowers drooping over the edge. After the flowers, just put a dab of glue on the end of the leaves and squeeze them between the flowers here and there.

I would love to see the results if anyone makes these. Have fun with them. I am bravely going back to the work room now. Wish me luck.

See you tomorrow.