Beautiful Card

A big thank you to Sandra who sent me this beautiful card she made for her Mother,which she designed by adapting the 'Flowers and Lace' free pattern. I love the butterflies and diamante decorations on the wings. Excellent! Let me know if you have made any of the free patterns or adapted one and want to display it in the Gallery.

Parchment Craft - The Techniques Volume 7 Painting

Parchment Craft – The Techniques, Volume 7 is the final book in this series and is dedicated to instruction of painting on parchment. Each chapter involves a different technique and each step is well illustrated. The chapters are: Tip tip tip technique; Circling and fine lines; Teardrop brushstrokes and Shading; The Pull technique and push technique and finally the One stroke technique. This book is packed with useful instruction, hints and tips with beautiful projects to make along the way, the project instructions assume you have read the other books in the series. I think the whole set of books are a great reference set to keep on the shelf. Please see earlier book reviews for the other books in the series, or click on Book Review in the Labels section at the side of this blog.

The New Pergamano Embossing Mat Excellent

The new Pergamano Embossing Mat Excellent is pink and comes packed in a cardboard tube. All embossing mats are different - the dense foam type tends to be a bit softer than the rubber mats - the new Pergmano mat seems to be somewhere in the middle, softer than a rubber mat but harder than a foam type mat. It is a good size 30 x 40 cm and is very flexible and quite thin - it does not slip on the table. So far, I have used this mat with a ball tools, shaders and hockey stick and it gives good results with all. I think I have found an embossing mat that suits me. Click here.

Free Parchment Craft Pattern - Art Nouveau - Profile of a Lady

Here is my fourth free parchment craft pattern download - hope you like it. Click here.for the pattern.

Parchment Craft Tools Are You Confused?

This picture shows PCA twin needle tool(on the right) and a mini stamp edge tool (on the left). Both tools can be used for edgings however when using the twin needle tool you would also require parchment scissors to snip the holes into a neat picot edge. The mini stamp edge tool cuts as it perforates and, although it is a lot quicker, the result isn't so neat. PCA mark their edging tools with coloured rings at the tool end so it is easy to tell them apart. PCA make these tools in two sizes Bold and Fine.

Pergamano make a 2Needle tool (similar to the twin needle) and a 2Split tool (similar to the mini stamp edge). To identify them look on the end of the handle the 2Needle shows two dots set apart, whereas the 2Split shows two dots joined.

The 4Needle version of these tools are called a Quad-Row and a Stamp Edge by PCA. The Pergamano alternatives are called 'Straight Four' and the edging tool is a 4Split.

If you have the older blue handled Pergamano tools and are not sure whether you have a Straight Four or 4Split, you should be able to tell just by perforating a scrap of parchment if the holes are so close together that they cut the parchment you have a 4Split tool.

Free Parchment Craft Pattern 'Flowers and Lace'

Here is the new free pattern. I recently broke my arm so I probably haven't finished the card as elaborately as I would have liked. If you download any of my patterns please feel free to change any parts you wish or make improvements, and send them to me and I will put them in a gallery. Click here for free pattern and instructions.

The Art of Painting by Gerti Hofman, A Book Review

In the Art of Painting Gerti Hofman has provided step by step instructions for painting with Pergamano Pintura paint, Pinta Perla, Tinta ink, felt pens and coloured pencils. This is a large book (80 pages) with instructions for 21 beautiful card designs.

Although the main focus of the book is painting there are some essential instructions for lace making but if you need to know more about lace making technique other books have more detail.

Each pattern focuses on a different painting technique: Dresden flowers techniques, Perga Liners dry and wet techniques, Brazilian technique and tip, tip, tip are some of them; so if you want to practise a particular technique it is easy to choose a pattern that will challenge you.

As well as being a useful addition to a Parchment Craft collection this is an essential guide and reference for painting there are many useful tips and information on how to correct problems in painting.