Freelance › Freelancers services › Advertising and marketing › Quilling to order: layered paper panels and cards
Quilling to order: layered paper panels and cards
Service description
I work with quilling — narrow paper strips rolled, pinched and glued edge-on, so the picture stands up from the backing instead of lying flat on it. Every order starts with a sketch. You tell me the room, the wall, the light, the occasion; I draw two or three composition variants and put together a palette on real paper, not on screen. Screen colour lies: a strip that looks warm ivory on a monitor can turn grey next to a walnut frame. I photograph the selected strips against a sample of your wall or furniture tone and we agree on the final set before a single element is rolled.
The strips themselves matter more than people expect. I use 120–160 g/m² coloured-through stock, so the edge you see is the same colour as the face and the work does not develop white cuts as it ages. Width is chosen by task: 3 mm for fine scrollwork and lettering, 5 mm for petals and leaves, 7–10 mm where I need a tall wall of paper for depth. From the base elements — tight coil, loose coil, teardrop, eye, arrow, crescent, scroll and husking loops — a form is assembled the way brickwork is assembled: densities are what give a petal its shading, not paint. Glue is applied with a needle applicator in dots the size of a poppy seed; PVA of the right viscosity dries clear and leaves no shine on the paper edge, and I never smear it across a visible surface.
Depth is a frame question as much as a paper one. A quilled panel needs a box frame or a deep mat so the glass never touches the elements — pressed paper is crushed paper. I build a spacer of 20–35 mm depending on the tallest element, glaze the work against dust and hang-side fingers, and seal the back. Glazing also buys you a first line of defence against fading, but the real rule is placement: no direct sun, no wall opposite a south window. My dyes are lightfast stock, yet no paper survives a sunbeam for years.
Timing is honest and measured per square decimetre — dense floral filling runs about four to five hours per dm², airy scrollwork about two. A card takes a day or two, an A4 panel a week to ten days, a large interior piece longer, and I tell you the number before we start.
What the order includes:
— two or three sketch variants and a palette agreed on real paper;
— the finished piece in a deep frame under glass, back sealed;
— care notes: placement, dusting, humidity;
— rigid packing with foam corners and a floating inner box for shipping;
— progress photographs at the sketch, assembly and framing stages.
The strips themselves matter more than people expect. I use 120–160 g/m² coloured-through stock, so the edge you see is the same colour as the face and the work does not develop white cuts as it ages. Width is chosen by task: 3 mm for fine scrollwork and lettering, 5 mm for petals and leaves, 7–10 mm where I need a tall wall of paper for depth. From the base elements — tight coil, loose coil, teardrop, eye, arrow, crescent, scroll and husking loops — a form is assembled the way brickwork is assembled: densities are what give a petal its shading, not paint. Glue is applied with a needle applicator in dots the size of a poppy seed; PVA of the right viscosity dries clear and leaves no shine on the paper edge, and I never smear it across a visible surface.
Depth is a frame question as much as a paper one. A quilled panel needs a box frame or a deep mat so the glass never touches the elements — pressed paper is crushed paper. I build a spacer of 20–35 mm depending on the tallest element, glaze the work against dust and hang-side fingers, and seal the back. Glazing also buys you a first line of defence against fading, but the real rule is placement: no direct sun, no wall opposite a south window. My dyes are lightfast stock, yet no paper survives a sunbeam for years.
Timing is honest and measured per square decimetre — dense floral filling runs about four to five hours per dm², airy scrollwork about two. A card takes a day or two, an A4 panel a week to ten days, a large interior piece longer, and I tell you the number before we start.
What the order includes:
— two or three sketch variants and a palette agreed on real paper;
— the finished piece in a deep frame under glass, back sealed;
— care notes: placement, dusting, humidity;
— rigid packing with foam corners and a floating inner box for shipping;
— progress photographs at the sketch, assembly and framing stages.
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