Bee Mine {Quilled Valentine}

Valentine’s Day is next week!

Since WordPress tells me that I get lots of views on my blog from searches related to quilling, I thought I’d share a really simple quilled Valentine. Complete with requisite corny Valentine pun. 🙂

So let’s get to it!

You’ll need 3 quilling strips: 1 yellow, 1 black, and 1 white. You’ll also need a quilling tool and a blank card. I used ivory. Oh, and glue. I like to use a glue pen, but any glue with a fine tip will work.

Start by cutting your yellow quilling strip in half. Using your quilling tool, make two loose circles from it. To do this, insert one end into the slot in the quilling tool, and carefully wrap the entire length around the tool. Then gently remove the curled circle from the tool.

Glue the ends so it doesn’t continue to loosen. You can see the two circles above are not exactly the same size. You want them close, but it’s ok if they’re not exact. And you can change it a little by pulling it a little tighter as you glue, or by gluing it looser.

Then you’ll want to pinch one of the circles into a sort of dome shape. Pinch the other one into a triangle. This will be the head & the tail of the bee.

Since it’s a Valentine card, I made hearts for the bee’s stripe. Cut your quilling strip in half, then cut one of those halves into 4 equal strips. They’ll be somewhere in the 2.5-3 inches long.

Fold each of these in half. Then roll each end toward the middle, stopping just before reaching the fold, to make a heart shape. You should have 4 hearts now. Glue 3 of the hearts together by gluing the two scrolled parts together in the middle. The 4th heart you should cut in half at the fold.

Arrange the hearts like the picture above, alternating directions and putting the 2 heart halves at the ends. Glue all the pieces down to the card at this point.Cut the white quilling strip in half, then fold one of the halves in half. (How many times can I say half in this post?) Make a heart shape like you did with the black strips, but instead of gluing it together in the middle, glue the outer scroll to the next one in. This way you can gently pinch the two sides of the heart to be elongated a bit. This way it looks more like wings.

Glue the wings to the top of the bee like you see above.

The last quilled part is the antenna. Take the leftover piece of black quilling strip, and cut it in half. Then fold one of those halves in half. (half, half, half, half… if you keep saying it, it eventually loses it’s meaning…) Then quill each side away from the center, but stop about 1/2 an inch from the fold. Put a little drop of glue to hold the scroll together at the top of the scroll, but don’t glue it to the straight part.

This last part is optional, really, and requires some very careful pinching. Using your fingers and thumbs, carefully pinch each scroll of the antenna into a heart shape by pinching the bottom with your thumbs as you use your fingernail to push down the top.

Glue this to the bee’s head.

Aw, look at him. He’s so cute.

Add a simple “bee mine” to the bottom, and you have yourself a cute little Valentine’s Day card. If you’ve quilled before, this will probably only take you 15 minutes from start to finish. If you’re a beginner, figure a little longer, but it’s pretty simple. Plus it won’t cost you $8+ like the cute ones in the stores do.

Make it for your special someone this week!