As long as people have had access to paper, they’ve practiced this really interesting craft known as paper quilling. I won’t give a full history of paper crafts in this post, but almost all of us have done it, even if we didn’t know it at the time.
Paper quilling is where you take a long, thin strip of paper and roll it into a shape. You’ve probably caught yourself doing this with paper wrappers or small scraps of paper you have lying around the house. Little did you know that you were engaging in a centuries-old artistic practice!
If you want an example of some quilling designs, I’ve linked a few of my favorites. I’ll continue on with some advice for getting started. I’ll assume you’re using your Cricut to get the paper cut into strips, but if you don’t have a vinyl cutter (they’re good for paper too!) you can just use a pair of scissors and a ruler.
When you’re getting started, if you search for paper quilling you’ll see people selling really colorful paper that’s already cut into strips. You absolutely don’t need to buy this, and I encourage you to make your own. You can start with simple strips of paper, and then vary them in the future by having different colors on each side, printing on them, or changing their thickness.
It’s also a good idea to start small. It’s easy to get better at things with practice, and crafting is no different, so for your first few projects you want them not only to be as easy as possible (so that you don’t get stuck) but as quick as possible. Fast projects let you see your mistakes faster, which lets you improve faster!
Don’t worry about getting the right tools for your first few projects. With a lot of crafts, I really recommend people take advantage of tools made specifically for that craft (like knitting or quilting), but with quilling you don’t need more more than your fingers and some paper to get the hang of it. Once you like your designs, you can invest a bit more into the right gear.
Don’t use too much glue. It’s always easy to add more glue if you need it, but it can be tricky taking it away. I know that you want your design to stick around forever and ever, but as my art teacher would always say: a little dab will do ya!
Definitely check out some of the premade quilling patterns I linked above, they can help a lot with crafting motivation and letting you see what your projects will look like in the future. Good luck out there!
