Royal Lace by Julie Roces

A book of 26 fabulous whitework designs. The lacework is incredibly detailed, there are fans wall decorations and cards all indiviually named after Royal Family members. Julie uses embellishments such as pearl beads to enhance the lace.
This is probably a book of patterns for someone who has some experience with embossing and perforating techniques. It would make a great Christmas present for a parchment craft enthusiast.

Parchment Craft Essentials

When you start a hobby such as parchment craft where the range of equipment required is quite large, it is often difficult to decide what to buy first. If you have seen a pattern you really want to try, it will have a list of special tools and equipment required for that pattern but there are essentials that you probably cannot do without.

Parchment 140,150,160gsm
For tracing: a white pencil, white Tinta ink and a mapping pen and a ruler

For embossing: a range of ball tools or shaders and a sun/star tool and an embossing mat.

For perforating: a single and twin needle tools and a thick perforating mat, scissors or snips

Colouring: I think I would go for a pack of pencil crayons first and a pencil sharpener of course

Don't forget that if you want to buy a grid make sure that your perforating tools are the same make. PCA tools fit PCA grids and Pergamano tools fit Pergamano grids.

Beginners to Parchment Craft - Book Reviews -1

Parchment Craft Volume 1 The Techniques Step by Step from Pergamano

This book concentrates on three techniques essential to those starting parchment craft. These are Tracing, embossing and stippling, very detailed instructions are given with loads of step by step photos to help you start the craft. There is a bit about the history of parchment craft and a list of materials needed, most impressively there is a very clear explanation and full size photo of all the embossing tools and a description of what they are used for, though this may be slightly out of date as the tool handles have changed and there may be extra embossing tools available now. Nevertheless it is good for basic information. Lots of tips, and I was interested to see that a metal engineers ruler is used in this book, as I prefer this rather than the plastic one.

Which embossing mat is the best?

There are a lot of embossing mats to choose from, hard rubber mats, softer foam mats, felt mats. These are all thinner than the perforating mats which are 10mm or more. If you are in a position to try out different mats at a workshop you can see which ones suit you,but if this is not possible the following may be useful. If you feel you are 'heavy handed' then a harder embossing mat will probably suit you, for example, a rubber mat. It is also important to keep your embossing mat for embossing and nothing else. If you perforate patterns on an embossing mat the indentations on the mat can prevent a smooth result when embossing.

Perfect Parchment Craft

I am in the process of setting up an online store, for parchment tools,equipment and accessories. The web site is not finished yet but I will post updates as to how it is progressing or click on the link to see how it is progressing!

Stencilled Iris

This is the first project I have done

in the 'Stencilling with Pastels' book. The instructions were clear, I added a backing behind my frame for more depth of colour and to prevent parts of the iris leaves showing through the vellum frame. Perga spray was very good for the invisible glue, it also is repositionable if you don't get it right first time.

Stencilling with Pastels

By Jannie van Schuylenburg

This is a great little book, 21 designs which look new and fresh. I love the Black Tulips design. The motifs are coloured through a stencil. There is no room for error because you can fix a numbered chart beneath the parchment and then stick the corresponding number stencil on the top, matching the numbers and shapes.

There are two types of pastels available, to do these designs you will need the ordinary box rather than the soft colours. There is quite a range of stencils, this book uses all the flower stencils. Iris, anemone, water lily etc.

I really enjoyed trying out this technique, the crayons are water soluble you use a damp finger to rub the colour on. It takes a little bit of practice to get the dampness just right. Details can be applied with a damp brush at the end.