Flat is just where paper starts

But you can take it to another dimension.

Everything starts here — a strip of paper and something to roll it around.

The first time I made something with quilling, I didn't know it was called quilling. A group of friends had gathered to make a birthday gift — something handmade, something worth giving — and someone had brought strips of paper and an idea. We sat around a table and started rolling. No tools, just fingers. Just paper and patience and the quiet focus that happens when your hands are busy with something small and satisfying.

What struck me was how natural it felt. Like I had done it before in some other life. The paper curled willingly. The shapes came together. And by the end of the afternoon there was something on the table that none of us could quite believe we had made.

I fell in love with it that day — not just with the result, but with the process. The way a single strip of paper can become a teardrop, a petal, a tight little coil or an open scroll depending entirely on how you hold it and when you let go. It leaves flat behind entirely. In careful hands, paper enters another dimension — it gains depth, shadow, presence. The versatility of it. The creative possibilities that open up the longer you sit with it.

The slot catches the paper. From here, everything is in the turning.

Months later, in a second-hand craft shop, I found a quilling tool. One of those small slotted pen-like things — the kind designed to hold the paper steady while your fingers do the rolling. I didn't go looking for it. It was just there, on a shelf, waiting. It felt like a signal.

I bought it. I haven't stopped since.

What I love most about quilling — and what surprised me when I came back to it properly — is that it sits somewhere between meditation and making. It has some of the same qualities as mandala drawing: the repetition, the rhythm, the way the outside world quiets down when you're concentrating on something tiny and deliberate. But it's a little more forgiving. Each coil is its own small thing. You finish one, you start the next. There's a completeness to each shape that mandala drawing doesn't always offer. And when the shapes come together into something larger, the result feels earned in a way that's hard to describe until you've experienced it.

Coils, teardrops, marquise, hearts. Each one made by hand, one roll at a time.

The shapes are deceptively simple to learn. A tight coil is just paper rolled all the way in and glued at the end. A loose coil is the same thing, released. A teardrop is a loose coil with one end pinched. A marquise is pinched at both ends. From these four shapes alone, you can build flowers, mandalas, animals, letters — almost anything. The more you practice, the more you see the possibilities.

It's also a craft that doesn't demand a lot. Paper. Glue. Something to roll with — fingers, if that's all you have. A surface to work on. The materials are gentle, the tools are small, and the pace is entirely your own. You can do it at the kitchen table. You can do it while listening to something. You can do it slowly, over an afternoon, and feel at the end of it that the time was well spent.

This is where patience goes. Every coil placed by hand, one at a time.

I've been working on something I'm excited to share. A small quilling workshop — beginner-friendly, all materials included, held here in the studio with a group small enough that everyone actually gets somewhere with it. You'll leave with a finished piece in your hands, made by you, from scratch, in a single session.

A leaf made from marquise shapes. The kind of thing that rewards a closer look.

If quilling is something you've been curious about — or something you've never heard of until right now — the workshop waitlist is open. Add your name and you'll be the first to know when dates and bookings are confirmed. I'd love to share this one with you.