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Hello, I'm Cecelia Louie of Paper Zen. In this video I'm going to be showing you
how to quill the outline for the lowercase letter a. I've always found the
lowercase letters to be cuter than their uppercase counterparts. I find the upper
case letters tend to look more rigid and structured because of all the straight
sides, but just because lowercase letters are cute, doesn't mean it's easier for
quilling. It's actually much more challenging to deal with all these
curves. If you'd like to try quilling the lowercase letter a, visit my blog and
download the free template. In case you didn't know I also offer a free template
for the uppercase letter A, shown in another video called "Quilling Letter A,
How to Outline". So if you haven't tried quilling letters yet, what are you waiting
for? And let me know what you think in the comments below. I want to know if you
think it's too difficult to deal with or whether you're really enjoying the look,
regardless of the effort. I haven't written a book of lowercase letters yet,
because I want to know if there's enough interest firs. To be honest with you, it
takes a while for me to write a book of quilling patterns and if I get an
overwhelming response from people telling me they want this, then I'm up
for the challenge. In your free download, you'll see two pages, and I'm just going
to set this one aside for now, and we'll come back to that later. This sheet here
gives you all the measurements of the letter A, and as you can see the number 1
corresponds with the number 1 here, so you know exactly what part of the letter
you're tracing. So I'm just going to lay my strip on top of this template, and
take my quilling needle, and basically score along all those lines. When you
come to here, you see the scissor icon and that's where you're going to cut. Now
if you ever came across my one of my other patterns in my book, and there's a
return arrow, it just means to pick this up and continue measuring along the
second row until you see another scissor icon. After you've finished scoring along
these lines onto your strip, it's time to fold. Now when you go to fold,
make sure that your fingers are touching these edges, so that you bring them
in alignment with one another; so in other words we don't want to fold
askew. So in other words something like that. Make sure your fingers help you
press these edges together so that we're folding exactly 90 degrees along the
fold line. When you fold it at a perfect 90 degrees, what you're going to find is
that when you go to glue, everything is lining up. You want it to be completely
in sync with one another. If you had it just a little askew, one would be up, and
you'd be forcing yourself when you go to glue. Now that we've got all our score
lines folded, let's go and shape it to this letter. So as you can imagine the
side for number one is right here, and number two goes up, and now we need to
fold it the opposite way to start number three. When we go to make this curve here,
we could use a quilling needle, but actually I prefer to use a crochet hook,
because I prefer this larger circumference. I find it easier to
manipulate a larger curve like that, but it's up to you; and what I do is, I grab
along that fold line and just soften to that next fold, which is right there. So
as I soften, and what what I mean by soften is, I'm just drawing the tool
against my finger and you know, just kind of drawing it along the length of that
strip; and what that does is it softens all the fibers, and you can see here, that
there still needs to be some more. So instead of just softly doing it now, I'm
really giving it a little bit of pressure against my finger. You can see
how it makes a much more acute angle. Well not acute angle, but more of a
quite a bit more dramatic curve to that, and then I want it to dip a
little bit more, you can see how it's not quite dipping right there.
So I'm just going to pick that up and just rub right there.
You can see that taking shape, and now that I have that part done, along the
bottom, you can see it's almost too tight here. That's actually quite easy to fix.
We'll just kind of soften the fibers back because paper pulp is quite
forgiving, and that's pretty much matching that angle so now I'm going to
fold the opposite way, and soften in that direction,
and what I'm doing here is placing it against my finger and really rubbing a
little bit harder, because I want a distinctive arc right there.
Number 5 is pretty straightforward, then we come down to 6, where we want
to keep this part of the strip straight. So we're just going to soften to about
there, and I would say at least a little bit more than halfway. So I'm going to
pick up my strip and just soften a little bit more than halfway, and then I
tend to just put it back down to gauge how far I am. So a little bit longer
throughout the strip and very gentle, very gentle. It's a very soft arc here.
So you can see as I follow the arc that it's coming out here. That tells me that
this part of the strip here needs more softening – just gentle. You don't want to
put the softening into all of this part that's supposed to be straight;
and that's how we tame your dragon! Well your paper which is a lot easier than a
dragon, don't you think so I think? Pretty much... that's there. I'm going to be okay
with that. Now for this little piece; and you can decide whether – because it's only
two segments – you decide whether you want to go this way or the other way. It
doesn't matter really, but I tend to... of the joins that I'm going to make, I tend
to put the join on the bottom side, because visually, when people look at a
quilling piece there, they tend to look from above more than from below. So any
chance I get, I try to hide my seam on the bottom. So in other words, I want,
you know, this part to start at this part right here, at this corner not that
corner;
and I can tell right off the bat – I need to rub quite a bit more significantly,
right there. We want the strip to basically be as docile as possible,
before we go to glue, so that gluing is going to be easier. I think that's pretty
much it. I forgot to mention the paper that I'm using for all my letters is the
thickness of a 1/4 inch here, and I'm cutting it out of Canson Mi-Teintes
paper which is a little bit thicker than conventional quilling paper. I find it
holds it's shape over a larger area where the expanse is not held by any shapes
but really, it's just on edge by itself. To glue this corner together, I'm just
going to use a plastic card, and run a small bead of glue down the side,
and then I'm going to touch the glue with my edge just a little bit right
there. Just that amount and bring those edges together,
and with my two fingers, I'm again making sure that these edges align. We don't
want them off shifted from one another,
and when I'm rubbing with my tool here, like this I'm physically kind of helping
the corners align right there.
Now I'm just fussing a little bit because there is a bit of an angle to
this part of the shape. It's not straight across. It's more down a little
bit, so I'm just kind of gently using my fingers to squeeze exactly where I need
that shape to go down, and that's how you get it to tame that way. Now we're ready
to glue the outline to the card, so let's bring back the other template. If you
have my book, Quilling Letters, you know that all the letters are on a 6 inch
square. That was so that it's easy for you to align onto scrapbook cardstock
which is typically 12 x 12, and if you cut it in half, and then fold that
in half, you have an exact card; because this is a lowercase letter and I plan on
giving it to someone whose name starts with the letter A, I'm just going
to do it onto a, 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper. Well, not
paper, this is cardstock actually. It's ivory colored cardstock and what I've
done is I've cut it in half, and then I folded it in half, and now I've got two
cards ready to go. Then I found a sunny window and I put this card against my
outline, and when you see it through the sun you can see the outline on the
opposite side, and I basically use some removable tape, and tape down those sides,
turn it over, and then I used a dried up pen, and basically inscribed heavily on
to this outline, and when you remove the template, then you've got your outline
traced onto your card. OK, now that my quilling paper is shaped, and my outline
has been traced to my card, I'm ready to glue these two together. The glue that I
tend to like using most is Aleene's Original Tacky Glue because it's super
thick, and it dries clear; and everyone's got
their own type of glue that they like, but this is tends to work well for
me. So I'm just going to put a bead down on this plastic card, and this plastic
card is actually very thin, so I'm going to use it to slide underneath some of the
strips as you'll see in a moment, and I'm just going to smear this stream
down into a flatter puddle, and that way we don't get any glue going up the sides
of your strip. I'm just going to work on the inner shape first, so I'm going to
put the outer shape off to the side, turn this guy to the side, so I can hopefully
see the outline, and I'm sure you guys are going to be working in better light
surroundings that I've got.
All right, that part was pretty easy wasn't it? So now that we've got the
inner shape down, we're going to work on the outer shape, and I'm going to secure
this part first, and then this part second, so I'm just going to dip the
straight parts into the glue first, and because my light is going the other way,
and it's easier for me to see there, I'm just going to turn it around,
and I forgot to do this, but actually I have some post-it notes and I had
actually meant to show you a way to help align your straight edges, because your eye
is going to be able to see how these edges here align, and luckily let's get
this guy out of the way first,
luckily my eyeballs seem to have aligned that part OK, but that's kind of a key
part, because your eye is going to figure it out – that you know, this one's a little
bit this way, that way; so you know it's that perfectionist and me I guess and
luckily for this example, it's pretty, pretty OK, and then as this part comes
to here, then you know again, it's going to help me visually align that perfect;
and not a little here not a little there,
Post-it Notes! I don't know what we did without that,
and again hopefully you guys are going to have better lighting than me in here.
It's like "guess where that's going to be". Sometimes what I do is, I kind of use
the motion with my hands before I actually have any glue there, and then
that way it's almost like, I don't know, it's like a practice cut. So I'm
practice gluing, and so I'm just going to slip this card underneath, just half of
the curve, and then that way I'm not stressed out about the whole curve, and
needing to glue that down. I find if you work in stages, then it's less
hyperventilation I guess. You just don't need that kind of stress in your life, do
we?
So again I'm just going to see where this is going to end up, before I
actually have the glue on the strip.
It's getting a little warm here, so my glue is drying a little faster than
normal, and again because my post-it note is here, it's helping me visually align
that. Now this guy's in my way so I'm just going to bend that corner, because
it's going to be forgiving. It's going to allow me to tell it where to go for now,
and I want that part to be glued like that, and I'm just going to put down some
fresh glue, because not liking this skin that's developing on my puddle. Anytime
you have little cobwebs of glue, that's an indication to put down some new, fresh
glue. Fresh glue is really key. You don't want little spider web parts to have to
deal with afterwards, and for the sake of the video I'm just using the same card,
but you know if you have more time, and patience, it's probably best that you use
a brand new card, or not a brand new card but one that's clean anyway. That's what
I like about using the plastic. I can re-use it again, and again.
So you see, this is where that spiderweb part I was talking about. This right here,
but luckily that part is dried, so it's easy enough to take away. So let's fix
this straight edge now, and I only want to dip the glue just on that straight
portion, right? So right on that corner,
and I'm just going to use this piece to just hold it in place, so that my strip
here doesn't, you know go too short, or go too long, and just as it meets up with
that other end of the strip, because this curve, it does provide some flexibility.
When you go to put it down, so I just wanted to make my
placement to be true.
Again I guess it's kind of warm here,
Spidy sense is tingling here,
and sometimes, when before you press all the way, I just use this straight
edge, just to make sure, this is the straightest part, so I might
as well borrow some help from this guy.
Now just to finish it off, I'm just going to pick up a little bit of glue on my tool,
and brush it alongside that corner piece,
and bring those two edges together to finish off your Letter a!
My friend loves peacock feathers, and I thought I would incorporate a feather
into this Lowercase Letter a, and I don't have any measurements to give you guys,
and I wasn't actually going to film this portion, but as I went along I thought,
"Well, I'll just explain this part as best as I can, and show you how I go about
eyeballing elements like this, and I apologize – please don't get frustrated
with me. I just don't measure these things.
I've found that when I try to go scientific, it's kind of like the two sides of my
brain are arguing with one another. So if you'll bear with me, you can watch how I
work, and I'll try my best to explain what it is that I'm eyeballing to
achieve the results that I'm getting, because if I were to measure this it
would take me too long to set up a pattern, and things like that. This is
just more of a one-off that I'm throwing out and I'm hoping that maybe you'll
still learn something from watching how I go about thinking about what I'm doing.
OK, so I started looking at the letter A and because this is such a vertical
area, I felt that was the best part of where the feather could come out. Now
if I had known I was going to make a feather, I probably would have moved my
letter a down a little bit but I think she'll be forgiving of me making
it a little off-center. Maybe I'll extend this down a little
further, I'm not sure just yet, that's how a lot of these things are sometimes. I
just don't plan that far ahead, so to get this stroke here, and also, nothing here
is glued down. Everything is just sort of eyeballed in place right now. The only
thing that's glued down is the letter A. So to achieve that stroke right there,
and who knows? Maybe by the time I shoot the cover for this video, this card might
look completely different. That's the part of the creative process that makes
it so wild and unplanned, and I find that you know,
that's how my best work comes about. So basically ignoring that part, I just kind
of soften a strip, and see. "Do I like the arc that's coming out of here?" So let me
just take this out of the way, and hopefully that's going to clean up the
visual palette here. So I start by laying down the strip and imagining "OK, I
think I like the feather coming to about there, so I'm just going to snip my paper
here, place it back on the letter, and put my fingers where I expect to intersect
there,
and try to imagine having that part continuing; and when I looked up some
images of feathers online I just kind of mimicked how that shape looks, and how it
looks to me, I'm visualizing having it kind of feathery soft, disappearing into
nothingness. So to achieve that, all I did was taper the edge of the paper.
Now the other the other one I had actually made, was quite a lot larger so
my ratio might be off. I think maybe because I'm trying to make it a little
bit closer to the letter and not so high, so bear with me I'm just kind of
figuring out as I go. I think I still prefer that longer piece and
that's the thing you know, it's just paper this is all sort of
playing as you go, and kind of go along if it's too short, too long it's
really easy to just adjust. Don't get locked into using that strip just
because you cut it. I think I still like that original one I think, because I was
using my phone to look at a feather and of course right now I'm using it to film.
So I can't have both, but that's how I created that arc, and so
then I just need to mirror on the other side and again, just taper and the beauty
of tapering is, it's kind of cool when you look at it from the side. It just
looks like the strip is fading into nothingness and I quite like that effect.
I did it first on some fireworks that I needed for a Mickey Mouse project. See how
this one to me now it looks obviously too long for that, so it's really easy to
adjust for that. Just trim off the excess. These are the little bits and pieces
that you end up throwing away, but it's kind of worth it anyway. So the first
time I ever did like a tapered kind of look was for some fireworks on a Mickey
Mouse project. I'll leave a link below to to lead you to my blog where you can
watch what I did back then, quite a number of years ago. So that's all I did
with some more strips all around it, just basically tapered it and softened it to
give that feathery outlining look. Now I don't know how this is all going to turn
out later, but I'm just going to set that part aside and explain how I did this
inner part. So to create this inside shape here, I've got quite a number of
colors right next to one another. I'm going to start with the dark blue here,
and what is that? About an inch, I guess.
I'm just going to soften the strip,
OK, I don't think, maybe that's a bit too long. When you rub like this, the ends
will come up and meet up with one another.
I'm going to soften the teal strip,
and I'm just going to cut – it's a little longer than I need right now, but I just
need it to be a little smaller, to make it easier to handle. I'm going to soften
that strip and this is what you would call this shape? A rounded
heart I guess; I'm just going to add some glue on the bottom of that.
I'm just going to smear it slightly to get the glue on the full edge of that
light blue,
and try to imagine where you need to cut. Then put your fingers there, and it's a
little warm here tonight, so my glue is drying faster than normal, and make those
two edges meet up.
Then I'm going to do the orange shape, which is kind of an oval, kind of like an
egg actually, and I don't want to build up all my seams right there, so I'm just
going to offset that a little bit. Why? I'm not sure. It's kind
of like when I was crocheting, and if any of you guys are crocheters out there,
you don't want to increase your circles in the same area. Then you'll see a join
eventually. So I guess that's the same concept. I don't know. So I'm just going
to adjust until I see that sort of egg ratio, and with my fingers I'm just going
to notch right there so I can see where I want to cut.
Now that I see the two side-by-side, I realize I've made this one quite a bit
larger, but I guess you guys can adjust as you see fit for your project. Now I'm
just going to circle that orange with a green. It kind of reminds me of you know,
those quilling strips that have two colors on either side. So I
guess this is kind of like making your own and in this case I'm going to offset
that join back in the middle again, and you know it's going to be hidden by the
time you glue it down to here. No one's going to see that. Oh and then in this
case, because my green is surrounding the orange, I actually want to put glue along
the entire strip, and in this case we can smear it with this edge of the green,
and again I'm just using my fingernail to notch where I'm guessing it's needing to
end – where it's gonna butt up against the other edge; and again, if yours doesn't
meet up, it's not a big deal. It's going to be completely hidden, and
that's how I created that guy; but obviously larger. See, this is what I mean.
I kind of eyeballed things as I went, and because I don't have measurements don't
get upset with me. I hope you enjoyed watching me make the feather anyway.
I'm pretty sure it's obvious by now that I changed up the letter to highlight it a
bit more. I really wanted the letter to stand out from the feather, so I lined it
in orange instead. It picks up some of the orange in the middle of the feather,
and if you're curious how I did the outline, in the light green here, just
look at the letter R video. I detail how to do that with the clean corners and I
hope you enjoyed watching how to make these tapered edges; and if you ended up
incorporating the feathered soft fading look in one of your projects, I'd love to
see it one day. So give it a try! Let me know how it goes, and whether
you'd like a book of what lowercase letters. As always your comments are what
fuels me. I'm inspired by your feedback! I want to keep improving what I do. Tell me
which tip is the one that looks new to you? Or let me know what you'd like to
see in future videos. Or ask me a question! I'll try to my best to answer.