How to Make A Quilled Christmas Wreath Card

The Christmas season is here, and along with it comes the yearly rush to send out and give away holiday cards to your friends and family members. When it comes to Christmas cards, some of us like to go with the old stand-by box sets (JAM offers several lovely options) while others like to take the homemade route. If you are more prone to put yourself into the later category, this post is for you. Those who keep up to date with paper crafting trends are probably familiar with quilling. For those who are not, here is a short explanation. Quilling is the practice of curling ans shaping strips of paper in order to create larger decorative shapes and designs. Here, I will show you how to use quilling to make your own beautiful and decorative Christmas wreath cards! You will need:

• One standard quilling tool (A sewing needle will also work.)
• Bright Hue Green Paper
• Bright Hue Red Paper
• Dark Red Paper
• White Paper or Cardstock
• Scissors
• One hot glue gun (with glue)

Step 1:

Cut thin, 11 inch long strips of green paper. These strips should be roughly even in width, but they do not need to be exact.

Step 2:

Using your quilling tool or needle, roll the first strip of paper into a spiral. After it is fully rolled, remove it from the tool and let it partially unravel. It should look like this.

Glue the loose end of the spiral in place with your glue gun. Repeat this step until you have enough green spirals to form a full wreath.

Step 3:

Choose a sheet or paper or card stock to use as the body of your card. For durability, card stock is recommended. Before gluing them in place, lay put your green spirals on your card surface as you would like to appear in your finished product.

After your design has been decided, use your glue gun to glue your wreath together on the card's surface!

Step 4:

Now that your basic wreath shape is completed, you can move on to making the bow. To begin the bow, cut several strips of red and dark red paper and you did with the green paper in step 1. After these strips have been cut, choose two strips of the same color to make into quilled teardrop shapes. These will become the inner most pieces of the bow.

Step 5:

To create a tear, or raindrop shape, wind your strip of paper around your quilling tool or needle in the same way that you did to create basic circles. When removing the paper from the tool, only allow it to unravel part way instead of letting it go. The degree to which you allow it to unravel will affect the size of your tear shape.

After this spiral has partially loosened, hold the center of this spiral with the index finger and thumb of your non-dominant hand while pulling gently outward and using your dominant hand to pull the outer portion of the spiral in the opposite direction while pinching to form a point (the top of the teardrop). Glue the loose end of the shape in place with your glue gun.

Step 6:

After you have made two tear drop shapes of the same color, take two strips of another shape of red and tightly wrap them around these shapes. Glue the loose ends in place. Next, take two strips of the first shade of red you used and loosely wrap them around the outer surface of the shapes you just wrapped. Pinch the top of each one so that it matches the shapes of the center pieces. To finish the two halves of the top of the bow, do this again with the opposite shade of red. Shown below is the tear-drop shape you started with compared to a fully completed half of a bow.

Step 7:

Make a middle for your bow by winding a tight, small circle of red paper and wrapping a strip of the other other red shade around it. Glue this round shape together with your glue gun and then glue all ribbon pieces onto the wreath in any way you would like!

After these are in place, loosely curl a few more red strips of paper and glue them in place to create the bottom/ excess bow strings.

Your wreath card is now complete! If you wish, you may use writing utensils to include a message such as "Merry Christmas", "Happy Holidays", or "Hi, Mom" within the wreath!

We hope that this craft helped to brighten up your season. Happy Holidays from all of us at JAM!