Paper Quilling is Art.

  This is a short picture video of my paper art designs.

What is it?
  This is called 'Quilling". Also known as Filigree. You may have heard of filigree as a jewelers term. That's true, it really is. Though this is not wielded in metals or gold, it's done with simple scraps of paper! Actually, quilling dates back hundreds of years. Women would use a needle or a porcupine quill to manipulate paper into different shapes and make beautiful framework and bookplates. Even before this early time, people were using quills, sticks and shaped rocks to mold metals into shapes for jewelry and decorative elements for things. No one really knows how long it has been around or it's origin. All I know is, it's beautiful, creative and all around us.
  Yes, everywhere you look you can see some sort of Quilling. It may not be the small designs fabricated by hand with a quill and paper, but instead, fabricated by machines in factories. Look about and see the buildings around you or even afar. Those fancy designs on metal barred windows and fences, inlays and grates made from glass, metal and even wood. These are all a type of filigree. It's all around the world! So enjoy it and all it's beauty. Quilling, aka filigree, is amazing.

How I discovered Paper Quilling..
  I stumbled across this artwork purely by accident while at a craft fair. I was 17 at the time. A lovely elder woman was sitting at a booth with a younger lady selling t-shirts and handmade accessories. I noticed that the woman was twirling paper with a very strange looking tool. I stood there for a moment or two, intrigued with what she was doing. She held up a panel with the most beautiful unfinished fan on it. She motioned me closer to really look at it. To my surprise the fan was made from no more then small intricately shaped pieces of paper! The younger woman asked me if I would like to watch her mother quill. I guess the look of wonder and joy on my face made the elder woman laugh. She motioned me to sit near her and I did.

  With soft, broken English, she explained to me that she was quilling. Then explained to me what quilling was. I was amazed at how fast she was with that strange looking tool, twirling the paper and squishing the small roll into a shape. She handed me a spare tool, it looks like a small pencil. Instead of a lead it has a small slotted metal end. She showed me that one end of the paper goes between the slots and you begin to roll the paper around the post until the paper is near the end. Then you let the finished roll unroll until the desired size. After that you dab a touch of glue to the end and complete the hoop, then shape it by gently squeezing the sides. It took me a few tries before I figured it out.

  I sat with her making different shapes out of different colored paper for nearly 4 hours! It was the rain that made us quit. Before I said thank you and went on my way. The sweet, sweet woman gave me a quilling tool, some paper and...... The Finished Fan. I was so thrilled. I hugged her, thanked her and hugged her again. I went home and made some more little shapes just for fun..and practice. For the next two weeks I would see the elder woman and her daughter at the fair. I'd sit with her for a few hours and quill. On the third week however, they weren't at the craft fair. I didn't know why, until the local paper came out. My wonderful quilling teacher and good friend had passed away at the age of 96. She was a wonderful woman and I will never forget her or what she had taught me.

  Though I had stopped quilling shortly after that, I never did forget how. It wasn't until I was about 26, when I went to visit my mom, that sparked the quilling frenzy again. She had been at the dollar store and came across a quilling kit with a new tool in it. It was amazing how fast I remembered how to quill again. Once I started again, I haven't been able to put it down. It's been almost 6 years since the re-kindle of my quilling passion.    The above video shows only my very favorite projects that I have made.

                              In memory of Scarlett Svetskyah.    1901-1997
                                            Thank you and God Bless.

'M'AZING MAZES

This is a short video of a few of my favorite mazes that I have created. I have over 400 intricate mazes that I have hand drawn over the years.

How it all started
  My sister and I were getting ready for a trip to Orlando Florida to go to Universal Studios and Disney World in 2000. We were really excited and could barely wait. Neither of us had been on a plane and it was going to be a 7-9 hour flight. So my sister and I came up with an idea of different things to keep us occupied during the long flight. She didn't want to buy a bunch of activity books. That's when the light went on in our heads. Why don't we make our own activity book. We came up with hang man puzzles, connect the dots, even a few word search puzzles. Both her and I love mazes so I tried to draw one to see what it would look like. I drew Mickey Mouse and it looked great. After that I started to draw a few more shapes from Disney and making them into mazes. I had about 20 mazes to put into our fun home made activity book.

  Unfortunately my sister got very sick and ended up in the hospital just 4 days before we were supposed to go so we had to cancel our trip. Though that didn't stop me from making fun mazes. I started to make fun shapes into mazes, then random objects, flowers, birds, animals and building. In just over 3 years I had made over 400 mazes! I took a few years off from drawing them to go to back to school and work full time. I still draw mazes to this day and am planning to put all my mazes into an activity book that is only mazes. The book will be called 'M'AZING MAZES!  The 'M' stands for My Marvelous Amazing Mazes. I just didn't like that title so I just took the 'M' from that and the 'azing' and formed 'M'AZING.

  If I think I can draw a simplified picture from something I'll give it a try. I get ideas for mazes from everywhere. People give me ideas of things, going to that mall has a thousand and one things to draw, going on a hike, a movie, a coffee, a trip.... There are endless things to try to draw into a maze. From the simplest things like a star to a more complex design like a bird cage.

The most difficult mazes that I have made?
  The most difficult ones I have encountered so far would have to be these three..  3) snowflake, 2) plate of spaghetti and 1) a gumball machine.
  The snowflake was difficult due to all the complex details of the flake to incorporate and make stand out as a shape yet being able to "split" it up to make the maze. The plate of spaghetti was a big challenge. the first attempt at that ended up looking like a ball of yarn. This is how the knitting basket came about. The second attempt turned into bales of hay and finally by adding meatballs I was able to get a lovely workable plate of spaghetti. The gumball machine was the fourth maze I made after the trip demise. I had it nearly done when my sister noticed that some people would be getting ripped off if this machine were real. I looked at it and realized that the gumballs inside the machine looked like they were cut in half. So I had to start over, it took probably 10 attempts and failures to get the gumballs to look right and actually be a believable gumball machine at the same time a workable solvable maze.

Who comes up with the maze names?
  95 % of the names for the mazes my sister comes up with. The other 5% I name or someone from the general public. About 80% of the maze names have two meanings behind them. Let me explain.. the perfect example I can give would be the Christmas candles. In most homes and churches having three burning staggered candles are known as "candles of hope." So that is the name of this mazes, the second meaning is "candles" because they are and "of hope" meaning a prayer to get through the mazes without getting stuck. Another example would be the old oil lamp. "light my way" again, it's a lamp, it lights up. Second meaning "light my way" give light to get through the maze.

  There are about 25% of my mazes that just don't have a name yet. Either the name chosen just doesn't sound right for the maze, the maze is new and hasn't been seen yet or we both are stumped on what to name it. This is when we ask others to help us.  The longest time to name a maze would have to be a fish bowl with two goldfish swimming in it. My sis wants it named "just keep swimming" but I don't think the name fits it (also it's Dori's saying) The maze was completed 2 years ago and still has no name. If anyone has a great name for this fish bowl maze leave it in the comment box below. Your name (with permission) will be put in a special thanks area of the book when published.

How 'BUG'mark creations came to be.

The answer:

When I was just a child I was somewhat annoying. Always tugging on someones sleeve to get their attention to show them my new creation that I made. My family called me a pest for doing so and the nick name "BUG" came to be my new name. As time went on and I grew out of the annoying stage the name still stuck. Since I've always been a crafting sort, whether it be beading, sewing, drawing, paper crafts or simply making a mess I've decided to use the name BUG as my business name. 

There has been many different "BUG" names that I have tried and scrapped. Some seemed good then I'd either forget what it was or my peers would bug me about the name. It took a few years and a few names to finally come up with 'BUG'mark creations.