Diana Official Blog

I've mentioned my love for paper from Daiso, a Japanese $2 dollar store. I've used it for many craft projects in the past. I wish they had more colors, because they offer a great range of shades in soft colors. Here are their "warm" and "cold" color packs. They don't list the thickness/weight but it's heavier than standard quilling strips because I find it holds the curve or shape I want over a greater distance, yet is flexible enough for me to make my tight coils without splitting, as thicker stock does. I use my Silhouette die cutter to cut lines in the paper, just shy of the ends so they stay in behaving sheets. Here are the 3 colors I've chosen to use in my poppy. I worried the dark one was too salmon, but it didn't look too bad when in place after all. I would make my general outlines with the darker strips first. Then I would start filling in with the medium pink. Finally I would add the lightest strips. I think the light strips were m...

I'm in love with a new glue for quilling! Although the esteemed Ann Martin vouched for Martha Stewart's All-Purpose Gel Adhesive , at the time I was on a mission to find a thick, quick drying glue – so I think I pre-judged before giving it a proper chance, fearing it too wet for my liking. Now I plan to use several glues per project. Just look how thinly it spreads on my yogurt lid! I dipped, dipped, and re-dipped far more times than would have been possible with my other white glues. When skin develops on my white glue, my frugal fingers yearn to quickly dip one last time, only to berate myself as I find skin scabs clinging to my strip – doh! When skin is without a doubt going to prevent any more dipping in a particularly deep puddle of glue, I will sometimes even poke it like an urgent pimple, pumping the dregs to add that last tiny dab needed in some obscure spot – I guess I'm too impatient to uncork my glue bottle? With this gel, it gets thicker as it dries, but withou...

In my previous post I showed an example of a partly glued strip. It either didn't get enough glue or wasn't pressed down to the surface, and as a result is floating loosely in the air. I have a simple solution that I've never expressed before because I just did it without thinking. After comments came in about my yogurt lid method, I thought I would show it in case it may help others as well. I just take a spare strip and spread a thin thread of glue. Using tweezers, lift the loose strip and slide the glued strip below. Lower the strip into the glue, dab, and move along until the loose area is coated. Remove the glue-coated strip and glue the floating edge in place. For those who are curious, here's my cut yogurt lid. I round the corner to make it easier to handle. The rim makes a great handle. Besides using a yogurt lid, I quite like using this plastic division separator. It came with my $6 fishing tackle box which I use for quilling paper storage. If you look closely...

I have now filled in a large portion of a petal. Leaving your chair to rest your back and hands is a good practice to do every hour. Leaving your work a full day helps you view it in new eyes. When I now look at the lines, I wish I had made my lines a bit more wrinkly. I think it won't matter overall when I'm done, but I think the crinkly bits makes it more fluid and realistic, less rigid – you can see I've done that as I worked my way outward. I hand cut all the ends because I think the tapered trimming makes it look lighter in those areas. To be efficient and save glue, I amass a few strips at a time until it starts to get confusing, then glue at one time. Although I cut my strips 1/8" with my Silhouette die cutter, I deliberately hand trimmed some to be less in height to make it appear to be fading into the light. Here's a close up to show how the 3 shades are working with one another. I'll go into my paper and custom cutting in another post. For the strips ...

I received a FaceBook message from Carrie Finson the other day and was just blown away: I stumbled across your blog a couple months ago and am in awe. A few years ago, I got a quilling kit at Hobby Lobby and did a few of the tutorials in the booklet provided. Other than that, I hadn't done any quilling. But your blog inspired me to do a special project for my mom. My mom loved it. She kept staring at it and saying how pretty it was. Now, it's nowhere close to your level of work, but I'm pretty proud of it and am looking forward to more projects. Just don't look too closely. Also, apologies for the poor quality of the photo... I took it at my light table and with my phone. Thanks for the lovely, inspirational work you do and for sharing it with the rest of us.  Carrie Isn't Carrie amazing??? I wasn't able to do something like this after a couple of tutorials and I certainly didn't dare do something so large! Can you imagine her next few projects? Tha...

The instant I saw this pink poppy on Pinterest a couple years ago, I wanted to quill it. I'm not sure how to go about it, but plan to show you the progress as I learn. First I printed the photo at 11x11 inches to fit a square Ikea frame. Placing tracing paper on top of the photo, I quickly traced the outline and deepest lines. Then I placed 80lb text weight white paper on top of the tracing paper so I could shine a light from below, using my DIY Tracing Light Table method. Using my nephews' Lego, I crimped my quilling strip (my first attempt of random crumpling didn't work well). On the right end of the strip, you can see I've semi-straightened some areas to make the uniform waves more irregular. I tried my best to "trace" the print out with my strip. Pinching a few of the curves made the evenly crimped strip a completely different animal. I also trimmed all the ends to make the petal appear to be fading away when viewed from the sides. Here is the outline co...

My greatest fear while writing my quilling instructions is whether I'm explaining my instructions enough, because my designs tend to be made from non-standard shapes and methods. So when I received these photos from Anna , I was over the moon. I like her festive color choices and that icing swirl looks so pro! It makes me walk on air knowing the fact that I've inspired someone across the globe - and I didn't have to be there to explain it. Anna saw my work from Manuk's preview of my book and proceeded to try designs from my book and store. She needed to decorate a box of chocolates for a birthday gift and wrote to tell me how fast she was able to put it together. In fact, she can't decide which design she likes most in my book, and is therefore making two cards at a time. She had this to say about the book, "I really like that it is so easy to follow everything and it takes minimum time to create a card!" Thank you for letting me showcase your work on my...

When I am imagining a project, I am often surprised it turns out how I see it in my head because I don't feel that way about my illustrations. When it works, it feels like the planets have aligned and it just feels good. This isn't one of those times. I hope posting this will help others learn from it anyway. Since I had such success with making my own paper flocking , I wanted to do it again for a birthday card for our nephew. I used a double-sided adhesive sheet. You can see here how I'm peeling away the two sides to access the sticky inner sheet. After cutting the elephant, I removed the bottom sheet and unwanted sticky areas, then applied to my card background. Next came the fun flocking making and the start of my disappointment. Although the adhesive sheet grabbed onto the paper fuzz, it was in such a patchy fashion, it made my elephant appear to have some kind of skin problem. Plus you can see just at his feet there, that it was kind of see-through, which is not what ...