Just Love Crafts: monogram

Hey peeps,
I have got something special to share with you all. I said in my last post that I was busy making something for a very special friend. And I finally completed it. Well, it was supposed to be a gift and I intended to send it too. However, postponed the idea for a while because of our stupid Indian post. :( :(
Well, apparently they tried charging me so high for something which weighed less than 100 gms that I need to work out some other way to send it...

Nevertheless that shouldn't refrain me from sharing this with you all. :)

Ok, so this is what I have made. Its a Quilled Monogram of the person's first letter of the name. here it is-

This is my first attempt at such kind of quilling and probably my biggest project too so far :p but I was surprised that it didn't take a lot of time. I finished this is 3 days working only a few hours on and off per day. I took approx. 2 hrs to make the frame from the scratch.

I am just unsatisfied with the base. I mistakenly used a printer sheet for the base, and so when a lot of glue was applied, the paper shrunk as can be noticed on the edges of the pattern. My advice is to use a thicker sheet or cardstock when making closed designs like these.

Would you like to see the step by step construction for it??

I have taken a few pictures explaining the process. Hope they help...

Firstly, I printed the monogram on a normal white sheet (printer paper). I found this beautiful design here.

I outlined it with A4 length 3 mm dark blue strips. That's how it looked-

I know it isn't really neat at this stage, but your flaws are easily hidden as the design fills. :p

I started to fill one portion at a time. i wanted to use normal quilling coils but in different shapes. I started with inserting the ones I already have in certain areas and filling one portion with heart shaped coils.

As I mentioned before, took me three days to finish the whole thing. That's how it looked at the last day.

Its an A4 size sheet at the moment but I wanted to frame it and thus, I cut off about 1.5 cms each from top and bottom margin.

I searched for framing ideas all over the internet but didn't find anything satisfactory till I checked out Ina's blog and I found this amazing idea. I can't thank her enough for putting up such simple and clear instructions and the results are really satisfactory.
This is how my frame looked before assembling-

I had followed Ina's instructions exactly and it turned out to be perfect. However, I made one more mistake of using pastel sheet for the frame. Basically, I was too lazy to go to the market to buy some good paper for framing and thus, settled on the one I had at my disposal. Well, the frame turned out to be fine, but while assembling I faced the problem of sticking the ends properly. As the corners kept falling apart unless I fed enough glue. Never mind but, the frame looked nice once completed.

This is the final look of my framed quilled monogram-

I hope you like it. If there are any questions you would like to ask me regarding making this, please feel free to ask me.
Thank you
Just Love Crafts xx