From Paper Strips to Prizes: The Making of Garden of Dreams
Few artists bring paper to life like Licia Politis. A master of dimensional quilling, Licia has once again garnered awards for her work, this time at the 2025 Sydney Royal Easter Show, Australia's largest annual ticketed event. With over 800,000 attendees, the Show highlights the best in rural tradition and artistic innovation.
Garden of Dreams at the Sydney Royal Easter Show
Licia's latest prize-winning entry, Garden of Dreams, is a colorful and intricate quilled wall art piece that took First Prize in Class 322 (any quilled item; may use supports and mounts to display; size restriction of 50cms [20"] x 50cms x 50cms) and was placed by judges in the Standard of Excellence Showcase.
Garden of Dreams was a piece that I wanted to feature both fruit and flowers. I also had it in mind to try my hand at quilling more realistic flowers rather than fantasy. I used hydrangea, bougainvillea, daisies, lotus pods, hibiscus, and orchids.
From Realistic Flowers to Fruity Textures
Rather than a plain background, my goal was to create a pattern that would compliment the flowers. I deliberately left parts of the background plain and added various size checkerboard and colours into the design.
Originally,
I glued the bandaged tablecloth into position, but then decided to lift
all of the bandaged strips and crimp each one because I like the way
colour and light play with bandaged and crimped strips, rather than them
being smooth. It was a tedious job and probably would have been quicker
to bandage a new set of strips, but I was short of certain colours!
I adhered the background first, followed by gluing the vase and background flowers/leaves securely before attaching the
bigger foreground pieces - the hydrangeas and hibiscus - a bit of a tricky operation, not exactly knowing
where they would be placed.
My quilling adhesive of choice is Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue.
I
covered the vase with blue spruer shapes in two different colors,
curling each shape, rather than leave it flat, at the end of each point
to create more surface texture.
The
photo (above) shows the way I worked from rear forward. To do this, I glued a
small strip of
pink paper to the end of each foliage or flower stem to keep them stable and the area neat. The larger flowers at
the centre front (mainly hydrangea & hibiscus) would cover that
area.
The stars aligned and I had just enough time to complete a few pieces of fruit positioned to the left side of the vase.
Late Nights and a Dream Realized
Despite helping to care for two young grandchildren during the day, Licia managed to work most nights from 8 PM until 2 AM. I'm a night owl, she laughed.
The realistic flowers were a massive challenge, especially the orchids,
hibiscus, and bougainvillea. I certainly surprised myself at what I
accomplished with the Garden of Dreams. It was a bit of a dream that I
completed it in eight weeks!
You'll find Licia Politis on Instagram, @paper_to_jewellery.
Images courtesy of Licia Politis and used with permission. All rights reserved.
