Miniature doll quilling

Hello everyone!

This is Nikita here and I am sharing a tutorial today. For this project, the song that inspired me Lionel Richie’s Angel. So, obviously, I made an angel. Here she is.

And in today’s detailed post, I’m going to show you how I made her.

The basic idea for this was inspired by Diane Boden Crane. In her book ‘Miniature Quilling,’ Diane has made many more such dolls. You can check those out too.

ANGEL’S FACE

Supplies:

2 Full Quilling Strips – Beige/Tan – any skin colour of your choice, Slotted Needle, Glue, Quilling Mold

How to:

STEP 1: Join both strips and roll a solid coil. To get rid of the hole in the centre, skip the slotted needle and use your fingers. It takes practice, but once you get the hang of it, it’s super easy and fun.

STEP 2: Place the solid coil on an appropriate dome on the Mold and push downwards from two ends, applying even pressure.

STEP 3: You should get a concave coil, as shown in the picture.

ANGEL’S BODY

Supplies:

1 Quilling Strip – Off White – you can pick your own depending on what you want her dress to look like, Slotted Needle, Glue.

How to:

STEP 1 & 2: Make a loose coil and shape it into a teardrop by pinching one side.

STEP 3 & 4: Pinch another part to its left.

The head and body go one below the other as seen in the image below.

ANGEL’S HAIR

Supplies:

1 Brown (or another hair color) Quilling Strip, Scissors, Quilling Needle

How to:

STEP 1: Cut the long strip into smaller pieces and cut each piece vertically.

STEP 2: This should give you two strips of the same length but thinner than 3mm.

STEP 3: Cut all of the smaller strips into two.

STEP 4: Using the Needle tool, roll the strips like you would curl your hair.

STEP 5 & 6: Repeat the process with all strips to get curls.

ANGEL’S DRESS

Supplies:

2 Full Quilling Strips each in 5 different colours – total 10, preferably in the same family (I used pinks and purples), Glue, Scissors.

How to:

STEP 1: Align the colours from lightest to darkest.

STEP 2: Glue strips of the same colour together.

STEPS 3-6: Glue the pair of strips (starting with the lightest) to the next darkest colour, until all ten strips are glued together.

STEP 7: You should have a nice little bunch of strips.

STEP 8: Start with the lightest strip (in this case – Pale Pink) and make a loop.

STEP 9: Make sure you apply a little glue where the loop joins.

STEP 10: With the next Pale Pink strip, make another loop, this time, slightly longer than the first.

STEP 11: Continue to make longer loops with all the strips, one after the other.

STEP 12: When you’ve made loops from all colours, you should have this.

STEP 13: Bend all the strips backwards.

STEP 14: Make a fold so that the strips don’t bounce back.

STEP 15: Start making loops again, just like we did earlier.

STEP 16: Repeat steps 8-12 till you have sufficient width. I made a set of 5 loops.

STEP 17: Cut off all strips except the first and the last (lightest and darkest)

STEP 18: Apply droplets of glue on the folds and first glue down the lightest strip.

STEP 19: First glue down the lightest strip.

STEP 20: Add glue drops.

STEP 21: Cut the extra dark strip and add glue at the end.

STEP 22: Fold it over the hinges of the loops, just like we did with the lightest and hold it with a tweezer.

STEP 23: The dress will now hold together.

STEP 24: Pinch the ends of each loop to make the end point-y. This is not necessary. You can choose to leave it as it is.

STEP 25: Apply glue between two loops.

STEP 26: Hold them together for a few seconds.

STEP 27: Repeat the process with the other loops. Now the ‘gaps’ between the dress are gone.

STEP 28: This is not glued down yet. This image is just to show you how the pieces will go together.

ANGEL’S WINGS

Supplies:

1 off white Quilling Strip for each wing – total 4, coloured strips (can use leftovers from the dress) for the outline, Glue, Scissors.

How to:

STEP 1: Take an off white Quilling strip and make a small loop.

STEP 2: Pull the strip around and make another loop, larger than the first one.

STEP 3. Repeat the process till you have around 6-7 loops for the small wing (2 pieces) and around 10-12 loops for the large wing (2 pieces).

STEP 4: Close the loop.

STEP 5: Press the top end of the loop with your index finger.

STEP 6: This is only to give a nice shape to the wing. Do this for all four pieces.

STEP 7: This is how your wings will look.

STEP 8: Wrap the off white piece with any colour from the dress. I chose different colours for the small and large wings.

PUTTING THE ANGEL TOGETHER

STEP 1: Apply a little glue to the circular portion of the angel’s body.

STEP 2: Join that with the bottom of the angel’s face.

STEP 3 & 4: Attach the hair on all sides. You can always trim it down if you feel it’s too long.

STEP 5: Add a belt (optional) to the angel’s dress. I added a few dots with Tombow Carded Red marker.

STEP 6: Join the large wing with the small wing.

STEP 7: Apply glue to the bottom of the angel’s body.

STEP 8: Adhere the body to the dress.

STEO 9: Here’s what we have so far.

STEP 10: Add droplets of glue to the corners of the wing.

STEPS 11-13: Adhere the wings to the back, one beside the other.

STEP 14: For the arms and legs, use 4 toothpicks. Cut their ends off and make it smooth. For hands and feet, use 4 teardrops, made in the same colour as the face using only 1/8th of the strip’s length.