Cactus art seems to be all the rage recently and I wanted to hop on board! I decided to pull out my old quilling materials and make quilled cactus art! You should be able to make this with minimal tools and and quilling experience. A few notes before you start, all paper strips are 1/8″ thick, I just used precut paper strips but you could cut your own if you want. When you are gluing pieces together you will want to use the straight pins and your foam/cork board to keep the pieces together. The last note is to use the glue sparingly, if you use too much it will be noticeable in your project.
Materials Needed for your quilled cactus:
- Clear school glue
- Approx 20 straight pins
- Foam or cork board
- Quilling tool
- scissors
- Tweezers (optional – it just makes it much easier)
- Crimping tool (optional – the middle cactus just won’t be bumpy)
- Flower hole punch (optional – you can just cut the flower shape with scissors)
- 5″x7″ white/cream cardstock
- 3 tan 18″ paper strips
- 1 light green 22″ paper strip
- 1 small square of red paper
- 3 dark green paper strips: 18″, 12″ and 6″
- 3 yellow paper strips: 18″, 12″ and 6″
- 2 orange 1″ paper strips
- Medium green paper strips: 2 12″; 3 6″ and 4 3″
- 3 light pink 1″ paper strips
Pots:
Using your tan strips, make three 1″ circles. Pinch the part of the circle where the paper is glued to itself to make a corner, make the second corner one inch away, this is the top of the pot, then add two at the bottom, slightly closer than one inch apart to make a trapezoid
Quilled Cactus #1:
For this quilled cactus, you use two pieces of paper at the same time, one dark green and one yellow, make sure to turn the paper with the dark green facing out. Using the 18″ papers make a 1 1/4″ circle. Pinch the circle to make a corner and make the second one about 1/4″ away from the first. Repeat the process again with the 12″ and 6″ strips, making the circles 3/4″ and 1/2″ wide respectively. Attach the arms to the main part of the cactus, you may have manipulate the arms a little, so the corners aren’t square and attach to the main piece at an angle.
Now make the flowers: Cut each orange 1″ strip into a fringe and make a tight circle. Then bend the fringe out to make a flower and attach it.
Quilled Cactus #2:
Crimp the 22″ light green paper and turn it into a 1″ circle. Make two corners about 3/4″ apart.
Now for the flower: punch (or cut) 4 flower shapes. fold the flowers up into quarters so they stick up, and glue them together. Then glue onto the cactus
Quilled Cactus #3:
Make 2 3/4″ circles using the 12″ strips, 3 1/2″ circles using the 6″ strips and 4 1/4″ circles using the 3″ strips. Take one of the large circles and make two corners about 5/8″ apart. This is the base of the cactus. Attach the circles to each other using the picture below as a guide.
Now make the flowers: using the light pink paper, make small, tight circles and slightly pinch them to make an oval, then glue them on to the cactus
Finishing steps:
Glue each cactus to a pot, and everything has dried, you will glue the cacti to the 5″x7″ cardstock. Before you glue them on, make sure to line up the cacti and center them and lightly mark where they go so you aren’t trying to move them around after you put the glue on. Put glue on the back of your cactus, make sure to use the smallest amount of glue possible, I use a straight pin to make sure there is a miniscule amount of glue, but do make sure each piece does have glue so the paper doesn’t move over time. Once the glue is dry you can frame your quilled cactus if you want.
