Quilling Fringed Flowers tutorial

As I wrote on Friday, I was planning to do a tutorial on quilling fringed flowers. For some background about quilling and some tips and tricks, see this post. And here's the link to my Winterfest challenge to combine quilling and stamping at the Stamping Board on Two Peas in a Bucket.

Fringed flowers are one of the most popular quilled flowers, and easy to do. You can do a wide variety of flowers, using different types of papers. Here are just a few examples:

I made a tutorial for the top flower and for a simple pom-pom. There is also some extra info on the other flowers below. The yellow flower will return on a card on Saturday, so I will explain how I made that one then.

There are two basic types of fringed flowers: pom-poms or flowers with a centre.

Fringed flower with a centre

Here's what I started out with for the top flower with the text pattern:

Supplies:
Paper: Fringed flowers are more forgiving than much other quilling when it comes to the weight of the paper, so as long as you are not using very heavy paper, there shouldn't be a problem, at least not with the outer layer. Heavy paper won't roll nicely for the centres. I used 3 mm quilling paper for the centre (30 cm long), 7 mm for the red fringes (15 cm long strip) and cut a 13 mm wide (22 cm long) strip of text patterned paper.
Slotted quilling tool or a needle tool. I used a needle tool, you can also use a hat pin, or roll with your hands only.
Bulldog clip is helpful when fringing.
Fine-tipped scissors.
Toothpick (to apply the glue).
Glue: use a fast and clear gluing glue.

Step 1: Tear the length of paper strips that you need. Tearing leaves a neater and less visible edge than cutting.

 

Step 2: There are fringing tools, fringing scissors and fringing dies available, but I prefer to simply use a pair of fine tipped scissors. I like when the cuts don't look completely even since that gives a more 'real' look to the flower. A bulldog clip is very helpful, both for holding the strip and to make sure that you don't cut all the way through. Place the clip along the very edge of the paper (leaving about 2 mm). Move it along the strip as you fringe. To speed the process up, fold the strip in half. I didn't do it with the large strip here since it was a bit too heavy.  

Vary the width of the cuts for different looking flowers. I made finer cuts on the red paper than on the text paper.

Step 3: Glue the three strips together (if you rather want to you can also roll one at a time).

Step 4: Start rolling, from the thinnest strip that will form the centre. Roll a solid coil for the centre and then continue with the rest of the fringed papers. I take the strip of the needle tool after having started the coil on the tool, at about the time of the photo above, and roll the rest by hand. But you can roll the whole strip on the tool too, or use a slotted tool.

Step 5: Glue the end down. When you have finished rolling the whole strip, you will get something looking like this.

Step 6: Spread the fringes with your fingers, starting with the outer layer. Sometimes you have to press the centre down so that the flower is flat at the base.

Step 7: As a finishing touch, I inked the edges of the flower.

Step 8: Turn the flower around and apply glue to the base. Let dry. I find that this step gives the flower extra stability, but it isn't necessary for smaller fringed flowers.

Simple pom-pom:

Step 1: Fringe as above. I used a 10 mm strip for this flower, 25 cm long.

Step 2: Roll the flower on a slotted tool or a needle tool.

Step 3: Glue the end down.

 

Step 4: Spread the fringes out. I applied a bit of Rock Candy Stickles to the pom-pom. You can also make tiny pom-poms which will look great as flower centres.

Some variations

Duo-toned flowers: Fringe two equal length strips of paper, place on top of each other and roll. The blue flower is without a centre (using 10 mm paper, 17 cm of each shade of blue). The pink and yellow flower has a white centre (for the centre 3 mm paper, 15 cm long, 10 mm yellow and pink papers, 25 cm of each).

Try using different types of papers. Here I used metallic paper.

Folded and fringed flowers: fold a 2 cm strip of paper lengthwise (or try a wider strip). Cut the fringes at an angle. Roll in the same direction as the cuts. The pink flower is made from quilling paper and the other one from patterned paper.

 

Cut the strip at an angle at the one end and start rolling from the less wide side - looks especially good if you have a flower with a centre.

Thank you for reading this tutorial, I hope you found it helpful. Sorry about the varied quality of the photos, I had to do this in the evening. I will explain how I made the yellow sunflower on Saturday when I will use it on a card.

Supplies: Lake City Craft quilling paper and needle tool; J.J. Quilling Design quilling paper; October Afternoon and BasicGrey patterned papers; Distress Ink Brushed Corduroy; Rock Candy Distress Stickles.