Fifth Anniversary - Tutorial and review for waterproofing quilled jhumkas

Hello All,

Thank you so much for all the love you people have showered on us for past 5 years! It has been a roller coaster of a ride but what is life without some adventure thrown in!! Just like every year, we celebrate this anniversary with some love of sharing.........

All the crafters who make quilling jewellery groan (inwardly or otherwise) when their jewellery is compared with readymade, mass manufactured and impersonal alloy jewellery (most of it Made in China). We know the pain! Waterproofing of quilled jewellery has been its Achilles' Heel for a long time and most crafters struggle with answering the question: Will this jewellery get ruined when water falls on it?

We saw the problem for what it was. The customers want to make sure their money is worth it and the cost (of handmade jewellery) is justified too! So, we experimented with a host of resins and coating materials. The wall we kept hitting was: Importing the resin! Most resins available in India either had a short shelf like, or yellowed after some time! Since resin is susceptible to fire, it's transported via ships and that meant long waiting periods!

When Itsy Bitsy announced its line of resin (Lil Birdie: https://goo.gl/2EacL3 ), we seized the opportunity to try it on our quilled jhumkas..........we were a bit apprehensive as the reviews we had received so far said that the resin had a lot of bubbles upon mixing. We have worked around that problem and this video demonstrates how to use the resin on quilled jhumkas....

Hope the Tutorial/Review helps........

Pritesh (on behalf of Art'zire Team)

An ode to a relationship

Hello All,

We take to writing after a long time..........and take to it with a beautiful thing to announce. A1 Craft Supply has been our choice of suppliers for a whole host of craft material, for quite some time now. Reason? Simple! We are into customization big time and A1 are the only suppliers who bend backwards to get us our quirky requirements to us, in time, every time............don't believe us? See the Jodha jhumkas........they had no idea what we were going to do with such small half pearls but they put their faith in us and searched Heaven and Earth to look for what we wanted. We needn't tell you that Jodhas turned out to be our most popular ever series of jewellery...........

So, when A1 placed and order with us, we got going AND loved doing it. Here comes our version of their logo.........

Some work-in-progress pictures too..........

Sending our heartfelt gratitude to A1 Craft Supply, in the form of the skills we can pour into their order :)

- Art'zire Team

Personalized frame for a car-lover

Hello All,

A personalized Birthday frame for a guy's birthday, who loves cars and bikes :) Commissioned very lovingly by his sister. After about 20 hours of effort, here it is:

Thank you for your order Pooja.....

Art'zire.....

PS: A more detailed post here

Seattle Skyline, off to Seattle.....

Hello All,

Art'zire, in collaboration with Rock, Paper & Scissors, proudly presents our biggest creation so far...........

Seattle City's skyline..........

And here is the "trivia" about the painting.......

Total number of hours of work: 368
Area: 5.5 feet by 3 feet
Total number of quilling strips used: ~ 27000 (if joined end to end, they are about 8 km in length)
Creators: Richa Kapre (Founder at Rock, Paper & Scissors) and Pritesh (Founder & Artist at Art'zire)
Time taken: ~ 25 days

Some more snapshots

Since we have been working incessantly on this giant painting, we beg for a little break before the nitbits and a whole lot more elaborate post comes up on Quilling Me Softly............

Thanks Suchitra & Satish, for giving us this opportunity..............

Happy Quilling

Richa & Pritesh

A jumbo tutorial video by Art'zire........

Hello All,

Here comes a jumbo video tutorial by the Art'zire team (Pritesh & Divleen), jointly with Hobby Mela, explaining a few things........hope it is a useful one :)

VIDEO

Due to some technical problem, we are unable to add the video directly from Youtube, hence the link.

Enjoy Quilling :)

Pritesh (Founder & Artist, Art'zire)

Yet another customized frame for a photographer's B'day

Hello All,

Another one from Art'zire kitty........

A more elaborate post about the frame is here

Thanks

Off to Singapore.........

Hello All,

When an e-mail from someone completely unknown to us comes by, requesting a customized product, we squeal in delight. This time, the order came in from Singapore. Sharon was kind enough to give us as much leeway as a client could possibly provide :)

Here are the results, a name plate for her house.......thanks a million Sharon

Some close-ups :)

And some work-in-progress photos.........

Putting our heads together

Hello All,

Art'zire extends a really warm welcome to our new crew member - Divleen Hundal, who has added so much value to our team that we are glad we found her! Don't believe us? Just take a look at what she does with paper! :)

And now, we leave you to decide for yourself.......

2014 Begins!

Hello All,

This is a year we eagerly looked forward to! We start afresh, in a new place..........Bangalore!

The year is off to a great start honestly! A workshop always brings such unparalleled joy to us! We got to create some fantabulous pieces (and orders are raining!)...............thank you every single one of you, who believed in us. Yes, we are human, yes we committed errors. But we are human! We will learn, improve and make sure your experience with us is a personal and pleasant one!

Here are some of the highlights of Art'zire for the year 2014, so far! :)

And some snippets from our maiden workshop in Bangalore :)

Thank you everyone and we hope for encouragement in Future too :)

Looking forward to be of service 

Art'zire

Colour Me Bright........

Hello All,

Are you an ardent quillographer?
Are you and ardent quiller?
Do you wish you had great quilling strips, that wouldn't be too thick or too thin, that would have bright colours, that are fade resistant?

Art'zire launches its dual range of strips, generic quilling strips and quillography strips.......read on for more.....

Quillography Strips

Text quilling/Typographic Quilling/Quillography is quilling where individual paper strips need to stand by themselves. This needs the paper to be thick so that it can stand by itself.

Art'zire brings to you paper strips specially meant for quillography, so you don't have to settle for thinner paper (after all, your effort need not go waste if the slightest of the pressure bends the strips) or, cut your own paper strips (an unarguably tedious task).......the strips are available in 17 colours (white and black in addition to the colours below)

 Specifications:

Width - 4 mm

Length - 297 mm

Weight of the paper - 220 gsm

Available as a pack of 300 strips (20 of each of the 15 colours above) for Rs. 900 (Rs. 3 per strip). Black and white (since they are used more often) can be bought in as many numbers as desired, for Rs. 2 per strip.

Hurry now, limited number of packs available........

Generic Quilling Strips

 

Specifications:

No. of colours - 32

Width - 3 mm

Length - 297 mm

Weight of the paper - 80 gsm

Available as a pack of 1020 strips (30 strips per colour, except for black, white and chocolate brown, which are 50 strips per pack) for Rs. 500

Hurry now, limited number of packs available........ 

For ordering, please write to artzire@gmail.com or call us at 9096421638 for more details/queries........

Example images of quillography:

 

 

 

 Examples of quilling that can be done using generic quilling strips:

 

Quilled National Bird :)

Dear All,

Quilling the national bird is no easy task, specially when the bird has such a myriad range of colours over itself that it is both an artist's dream and nightmare to make it, form of Art notwithstanding. Since time immemorial, the bird has caught the fancy of many an artist. When a request for a quilled peacock fell in Art'zire's lap, it was taken up as a challenge, for at Art'zire, we revel in challenging ourselves.......in pushing our limits and creating projects that leave us with a happy feeling of having put in our best.......

So, here goes the quilled national bird, or rather, shall we say that this is our take on it? It is near impossible to replicate the regal bird's plume, we think :) For anyone who is interested, more anecdotal and personal stories are in this post :)

Art'zire thanks our client for providing us with this opportunity and also, the beautiful jute based background :)

Stay Creative........

Pritesh
Founder & Artist
Art'zire
artzire@gmail.com
+91 9096421638

PhD Completion gift

Hello All,

Art'zire proudly presents the first quilling frame, a gift for someone's PhD completion :) The image was provided by the client but has been adapted to quilling. For the first time, Art'zire mixes painting and quilling, to make a special project for someone who has slogged for years and is nearing the end of the journey full of hard-work, struggle and perseverance :)

Thanks to the client, for having faith is us and ordering this frame :)

Pritesh (Founder & Artist at Art'zire)

Customize, Personalize, Artify.......Art'zire you must try

Hello World,

Thank you so much for all your love on the Art'zire's FB page.......the response has been overwhelming and I'm humbled by the faith shown by you all. I wish to thank every single one of you, for dropping by, for liking, for commenting, for giving constructive feedback, for everything!

And here is a little bit about Art'zire......

At Art'zire, the core belief is that everyone ought to feel special. Every creation needs to be special. Unlike 'bulk' creations, Art'zire strives to become a niche business where you come in with your criteria and go out with a product, that meets as many criteria out of yours as we can manage to meet. In short, we don't create a product for you, we create an experience.

Art'zire is largely managed by Dr. (Mrs.) Pritesh, but has freelancers contributing as well, and is based in Pune. With the advent of Internet distances have ceased to matter! Art'zire caters to clients from all over the world and to various tastes.

Try us with what you have in mind. We work closely in association with you, listening to your ideas, pooling in our inputs and giving it our best to artify "your" ideas........

We are new, we are small but we are open to experimenting. So, if you want jewellery, visiting cards, invitation cards, logo designs, customized gift frames or anything that involves creating something special and unique, we are all ears.........try us......for we believe in your ideas..............and in artifying them :)

Thanks

Pritesh
(Founder, Art'zire)

PS: Art'zire commits itself to creating a transparent network of artists where every artist who creates for us will get a fair share of the final selling price, specially the underprivileged artists/artists from far flung areas who often end up being buried under layers of middlemen and get paid peanuts for fine pieces of Art.