Sunflower Mosaic

This is my version of Erin Curet's Quill-Along project, a suncatcher mosaic. This is another one of her eye-catchy projects which I like. Enough to make several as Christmas gifts! I made a total of five suncatchers. If you make them in a production-line process, it will go quicker. I suggest you always start a step with the same sunflower and learn from it. Keep that one for yourself. The rest will be perfect!

 Below you will find the finished results plus some of the steps along the way. And some comments about the process. The small pictures link to larger ones.

On-Edge strips are shaped into petals and the center and the center spiral. More strips are added to make a heavy border or framework. The pieces get glued together. Make SURE everything is flat and level.	The next step is to flood the center and petals with colored glue. Erin's tutorial explains exactly what to use and how to do the glue process. It is a wonderful set of instructions. She even talks about the merits of a silicone mat versus wax paper. (I chose the silicone mat and had great success.)  Her tutorial can be purchased from Little Circles. It is well worth the $5.99! The direct link to the tutorial: https://littlecircles.co/collections/projects-tutorials/products/sunflower-suncatchertutorial The glue will let the light shine through as the suncatcher hangs in the window. It is amazing. This step takes time to dry so be sure to find an area where it is out of the way of your daily life. Next step is quilling. I added the quills on top of the dried glue within the petals.
The rest of the quills were banded with black. Production line: I cut my strips, then glued ends together, then started the rolling and then finished the rolls by banding them with the black portion of the strip. I squished them into the correct shapes as I placed them. This varied the shape and filled the space properly. As you can see in my final picture in this section, I seemed to never make enough rolls! 5 suncatchers need a lot of coils! By the way, I did not extend the tips out as far as Erin suggested. I was shipping most of them and wanted to keep my box size reasonable.
Gluing the squished rolls around the petals needs a comment. Pay attention to the amount of glue you are using and clean up any squeeze out. Your finished suncatcher will look so much neater.
glue has squeezed out	glue is gone

Back to Charmayne's Quilling home page