Children’s art – Quilling for crowds – RULES OF “GLUEOLOGY”
Quilling is the art of creating designs using narrow strips of paper that have been wrapped around a quilling tool to create a basic shape (s-shape, heart, eyeball, coil, spiral, etc.) The shapes are glued together and arranged to form all sorts of eye-catching designs. Some would have you believe that this craft needs to be done with precision, with special tools, with just the right type of paper, and done to a minimum. Objective NOT!
You can make quilling fun, with crowds of people, even little people! Stay loose, have creative fun and forget about precision!
This is an overview:
GLUEOLOGY and FLEXIBILITY are the key!
DON’T WORRY SO MUCH about the exact right paper, the perfect tools, or the best glue.
Materials you need:
Scissors – child size
Any paper. Any color. Construction paper can be clunky, but it still works. The BEST paper is recycled (and free). Don’t BUY paper unless you have to. Ask a printer for scraps, leftovers.
Use a paper cutter and cut the paper into strips about ½ to 1 inch wide ahead of time. They don’t all have to be exactly the same. A variety of lengths is good. Cut lots so kids have lots of options.
White “school glue”. The BIG important instruction on glue usage is this: “Use SMALL drops of glue!” I have often put the glue in small cups with toothpicks sticking out, so the kids can only apply the glue in small pieces with the toothpick.
Sticks: Small round wooden sticks, toothpicks, or pencils work to determine how tight the curls will be. Preschoolers can wrap a strip of paper tightly around a pencil. Older children have more success with a toothpick.
The action:
ROLLING the paper: There are a wide variety of basic curls. At your event, you’ll want to constantly demonstrate them and have a variety of finished pieces available to view. Print pictures of the basic curls for people to see.
You especially want to have samples made of very basic quilling art. Examples: a mouse, a heart. A mouse is 3 tears, a slightly curled tail, a rolled eye, and that’s it… or you can go to the next step and fill the mouse’s body with lots of s-shaped curls. A heart: use a wider strip for the outer heart and fill the heart with shapes.
SCIENCE TIME!!!!! GLUEOLOGY! Here is the key to your success! The science of glue is this: the reason glue holds things together is that the glue molecules mix with the paper molecules. So if you apply a puddle of glue, it’s harder for the glue molecules to mix with the paper molecules. So, put some glue on one spot, and then put the two papers you want to glue together, and then SQUEEZE the papers together, with the drop of glue in the middle, wow! It quickly sticks and you can move on. Important so that children can move on!
USE IT: At a fair, kids need a way to take their creations with them. Your quilling project could be fragile. Use heavy fishing line (oh thrifty!) Hang your art and wear it like a necklace. Make sure everyone has an instruction sheet in their pocket, so they can get hooked at home with this wonderfully creative craft!
HOLIDAY THEMES:At a Christmas fair, we quilled snowflakes, glittered them and gave them as Christmas gifts. Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Dwali, Kwanza…it works.
There are so many ways to use quilling for gifts, decorations, cards! This is a skill for life!