The word quilling is said to be derived from the fact that during the renaissance days, nuns and monks originally used feather quills as their tool to roll paper while practising this craft. Quilling, sometimes called Paper Filigree is an art form that involves the use of strips of paper that are rolled, shaped, and glued together to create decorative designs. During the Renaissance, French and Italian nuns and monks used quilling to decorate book covers and religious items. The paper most commonly used was strips of paper trimmed from the gilded edges of books. These gilded paper strips were then rolled to create the quilled shapes.

The basic quilling shapes are made by taking strips of paper and rolling them into tight or loose coils. These coils are then formed into various shapes. Then adding them to an overall design on art projects of all sorts. The photo on the left shows quilled shapes added to a piece of line art, mounted on a greeting card.

The shapes are grouped together to make any design or pattern that you can imagine. In general, a combination of tight winding, loosening, curling, creasing and gluing are used to form the designs. The photo clip on the right is a close up from the greeting card project. Although they are not always added on top of a piece of line art, you can see how this technique adds a sense of dimension and color depth to the underlying graphic that was decorated with colored pencils.

Below is a list of Web Sitings about this art form. Become a member of the Artful Shares wiki and add to this list today!

Quilling Art - Web Sitings

Website	URL/Link
Quilling, Art and Expression Blog	http://www.quilling.blogspot.com/
Creative Paper Crafts - Quilling Page	http://www.creativepapercrafts.com/products/quilling.aspx
Paper Quilling Resources	http://www.mypaperquilling.com/
Handcrafters Village - Quilling Pages	http://www.handcraftersvillage.com/quilling.htm

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