Rainbow coloured mandala

At last I completed my rainbow coloured mandala yesterday. My first ever. So far, only one is done. I have to make at least 5  or more of this. Hope I won't get tired making so many of them.

I had a hard time deciding what quilling shapes and sizes I would choose to surround the rainbow shell shape petals. After a lot of trials and errors, this is what I came up with. The mandala itself is quite small and simple. I made it look a little fancy by adorning it with all those bling blings. 

After this, the next step is to put this mandala on my handmade cards. I think it would be great card for any occasion. Although making a quilling mandala means that you would have to make similar quilling shapes repeatedly, I'm surprised that I enjoyed it. It can be rather therapeutic! Indeed!

The only challenging thing about making this quilling mandala was making those rainbow shell shape petals. Which by the way, takes so long to make! Yikes! Other than that, it was easy peasy making those basic quilling shapes. It's been a long time since I made those marquise and tear drop shapes. Can be a little nostalgic! Just thinking back on how many of those shapes I made way back when I first started quilling. I must have made thousands of them!

For all the quilling shapes in this mandala, I only used 5mm quilling strips. And they are all hand cut with razor and metal ruler. I'm beginning to enjoy using the 5mm quilling strips. All these years of quilling, 8 years in total, not once I tried the 5mm quilling strips. I've only been using the 3mm ones. And they are mostly shredded papers. But now, anything goes! It's all about experimenting and going to the next level. ;)