Parchment Craft - Cutting a Picot Edge

This is a tricky skill to get right, but once you have practised - a lot!! You will find yourself getting quicker and neater.

You will need Perga cutters or Parchment Scissors, parchment paper and a twin needle tool (this one is Bold).  All instructions are for the right handed.

Instructions:
Perforate with the twin needle tool, neat evenly spaced holes. Place the very tips of the points of the cutters/ scissors into the first two holes.

Lower the cutters / scissors so that they are almost parallel to the parchment and keeping the cutters pointing straight (at a right angle to the perforations) twist slightly to the left (anti-clockwise) and snip.

Always move the parchment around to make the snipping easier. You should end up with neat little V shaped teeth along the edge. Hope this is helpful - just keep practising.

Parchment Craft Free Pattern - Butterfly Trellis

Here is my new free parchment craft pattern called Butterfly Trellis. Please feel free to adapt and innovate from this design if you want to. Don't forget to send me a picture of the card or a link to get to it, and I will put it in the Gallery.

Embossing an Oval Shape on to Parchment

Embossing an oval or circle shape on to parchment is really difficult to get right. First of all you have to trace it from the pattern in white pencil, then turn the parchment over and emboss the line. The long curved line needs a steady hand and it is always best to turn the parchment frequently and steady the side of your hand on a surface while you arc the embossing tool or pencil. Find a position that is comfortable for your hand and try to do the arc quickly and smoothly.  On the new free pattern above I tried the tracing method and got a fair result. I also tried one of the PCA embossing templates for oval shapes and the result was much better and easier (this is the result above). The embossing templates are plastic and once they are fixed in position with tiny balls of blu-tac under the parchment, you can use the ball tool to follow the template and create a perfect oval or circle etc. they come in many different shapes and sizes. If you have a tip to help drawing shapes on parchment please comment below.

Free pattern now available here.