Hi All,
I want to buy some leaf punches and my thought was, who else uses punches and what for?

I have seen some lovely pieces that have combined the punch craft with the quilled art to give a very effective look, what have you tried that works for you? Do you punch your leaves or cut them yourself? what hints do you have?

I love the calla lily and this comes in a punch so you can combine with your other quilled flowers. Calla lilies can also be cut out by hand.

What are your thoughts?

Karon

I have used leaf and flower punches along with quilled. I think it makes all flowers stand out more. I've used a leaf punch to make into flowers.

also used different size flowers and stak them to make them look fuller.

I fringe my own leaves by hand, really easy, fold your strip in half, fringe along with scissors, open up and just your leaves out. You can then bend the fringes to give the leaves more life....

Hmmm...I do have many hole punches, but that's for my card making and scrapbooking. I've never used them for quilling before!

I use punched flowers and leaves very rarely with my quilling.
However, having said that, I did use some punched flowers last night at a ladies group where I made all the flowers and leaves, just because I had them stored away and they were quick to use. The ladies just had to glue them on an Easter egg cardboard shape and add stickers and voila an Easter decoration.
Hope to show a picture on the weekend

I quite often use punched leaves with my flowers and will occasionally mix punched flowers and quilled flowers. I think they can at times accentuate your quilling. Especially for Roses, I use a punched leaf that I screw up and then open back out to give it a textured surface. The effect is good. I guess it just depends what you want to do with them. But I also have a fern that I use with some flowers, and that is great too. I don't mind mixing and matching different media (stickers, punches, ribbons, jewels etc) with my quilling. And they are fun to play with sometimes too. I bought this excellent book called "Paper Bouquet" by Susan Tierney Cockburn (from Fishpond) and she has some fantastic uses for punches to make flowers, only problem is that I haven't been able to find some of the shapes that she uses in the book But some really fantastic things can be created with punches... And if all else fails they are fantastic for your young children to play with and "make cards like mummy" as mine do when I get creating when they are awake (not very often though!) or make for great entertainment doing craft together on school holidays - I sit and punch from different papers and the kids glue them on their art work. My partner knows too that when I am going to "punch" something I don't mean hit it either... LOL - took him a while to work that out!

Cheers!
Belinda

This is great to know. I know Punch craft Australia has some unique punches that you can't get elsewhere but I too like you Belinda have seen some such as the calla lily punched but can't locate the punch anywhere so I have to resort to cutting them out. I am kind of "over" cutting out leaves now since they always no matter how hard I try look wonky and the punched ones are just so perfect. I think you are right Jo with fringing them by hand.... it just gives them some uniqueness which they need and look excellent when finished. Tammy gave me some pencils that when you draw or colour in, you add a little water to make it look like water colour paint. I am thinking drawing the veins on the leaves and using these pencils will give a nice natural look too!
Karon

The other tool that I find handy for detailing leaves is my parchment scoring tool. It is like a pen but with a ball on the end. I find that often I can 'draw in' some veins on leaves and petals etc. I also find my paper folder on the cork backing of my quilling board helps shape the petals so they curl. Don't know if you already experimented with that, but something to try if not.

Pencils work well too, especially water colours as you can 'bleed' the colour to make the effect work... Perhaps something to try if you haven't already.

I sometimes use punched items with my quilling. I also use a die-cutter for some of the bits I want to use - I have a particularly cute and very workable leaf on one of my flower dies and often use that.

Hi Karon,
Have a look at Paper Bouquet book by SusanTierney Cockburn(maybe you already have it) it has lots of lovely flowers I think you could combine with quilling it has a list of punch sets in the back of the book I have done a few and love them also some of Carl punches which can be used for some of the flowers,I'm just trying to sort out the sises as some are too big for cards,happy punching Jenny

Karon, Sorry I messed up my first post but hope I'm on track now,and yes I do use a couple of leaf punches but find it is easy to cut different long leaves and score some vanes,Jenny

Sounds Great, I will check it out!! Those long leaves sound exotic and don't worry about the picture, this forum has so many features on it, sometimes it gets confusing even for me!!
Karon