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You are welcome to copy any of my designs, as long as you do not take credit for them yourself. I am very happy for you to sell them. If I have used anyone else's design, I always try to give credit where it is due. If I have missed anything, please let me know and I will put things right.


This is intended to be mainly about my crafting stories, as a personal record of what I do. However, I interpret crafting quite widely, not just paper crafting but other things too. I have a butterfly mind and like to change from one thing to another depending on what I feel like on a given day - knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, cards, baking and several others, including my favourite right now, parchment, both traditional skills and Groovi, very relaxing and calming to do.

I have decided to put some structure into my blog so that each day will have something of a theme.
Monday- for Mindfulness; Tuesday - Tidy Up Day; Wednesday - What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday; Thursday - Technique and Tips; Friday - Finish Off Day; Saturday - Start Something New; Sunday - Anything Goes
These themes are not hard and fast and will be changed if I feel the need.

Thursday 8 August 2019

Thursday should be tips and techniques

I have been holding these back until today until they were officially launched by Paul Church on Hochanda today.  I really love this new plate from Linda Williams for Clarity Stamp (https://claritystamp.com/collections/as-seen-on-tv/products/lindas-heart-sampler-br-a4-square-groovi-plate?variant=29312116457520)


Having watched the shows so far today, the design team have done a fabulous job and produced so many different ways of using this lovely plate.  I chose to work on small cards (cheaper through the post) and had real fun with them.  With this first one, I took a part of one heart and extended to create a slightly larger border with the criss cross design.  I was aiming at something to suggest tartan and coloured the border before perforating and snipping in between.  I backed it with one of the Clarity designer papers.  It took a while to find the right backing for all of these.  

When you have spent a long time and a lot of care working on a piece of parchment, never rush to stick it down.  So many pieces have been ruined by using the wrong backing paper.  If you use a very light colour behind the parchment, you risk totally losing all your embossing work as it disappears into your backing.  Spend time placing your piece on top of different types of background  Many experts suggest that you should choose your backing before colouring your work, but that does not work for me.  My brain is not that organised and my pieces of work tend to develop as I go and finish up miles away from the original idea..  That is just the way I work.


I love the design in the centre of this heart and it reminds me of quilting   I kept totally to the whitework as I did not think it needed any extra colour, particularly with the narrow frill round the outside.  I really love the frill design.  Remember that there are two parts to embossing a frill.  You need to decide which part is sticking up and which is going to the back.  The bits that go to the back should be embossed from the front, but only very lightly and with a thin piece of cellophane between the ball tool and the parchment.  That  prevents the parchment getting shiny on the front which can look ugly.  The bits that are coming to the front are embossed, as normal from the back.  Make sure you work right from the outer edge inwards.  There should be no gap between the outer edge and your embossing, but fade it slightly as you go towards the inner edge.


I like this next one a lot as it gives me the impression of more depth.  I coloured, perforated and picot cut the small heart before backing it onto the designer paper.  Most of my perforating and snipping is done using the fine grid and tools.  As a personal choice, I do not like the bold grid and tools, and with something this small, I feel that the bold grid is too big and would overpower such a small piece.  With a really good light such as my head torch, which I can focus exactly to where I need the illumination, I have no problem seeing what I am doing, despite developing cataracts.  While I am talking about light, strong sunlight is not a good situation and I really struggle to see anything clearly enough to snip or perforate in the sun.


This blue card is a marriage between the corners from one of Linda's hearts and one of Josie Davidson's plates.  It is backed on Shenandoah paper in blue, but I used two different shades of blue pencils to add extra colour,  You really need a needle point pencil to do this successfully, and keep your sharpener ready to resharpen those pencil points, especially if you are colouring on the front as I did here.


These next two were kept simple with just basic whitework.  I did not think they needed any further embellishment so they are ideal for anyone just starting out on their parchment journey.  The only thing that is slightly more advanced is how I did the borders.  I chose a couple of multi needle tools to edge them.  I cannot remember which tool this was, I just grabbed three different ones to play with.

I further decorated the border with a sun tool and a tiny dot in the centre.  I really like the effect you can get with this arrangement with very little effort.

 

On this one, I edged it with the small semi circle tool and put a dot in the centre of each semi circle to finish it off.


Then we come to my favourite of the ones I have done so far.


Again, I have done a lot of perforating and picot cutting, and the border is my favourite multi needle tool, the semi square.





Hope you like what I have shown you today, and get your multi needle tools out and play with them   they really lift your work and are not hard when you get the hang of them.  Don't be afraid to just play and experiment.  Have fun.

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