How to – cut and perforate parchment

Perforating and Cutting parchment

Cutting a cross.

• Lightly perforate through the pattern and parchment on thin foam.  You should not make big holes with the needles.  Then do any embossing within the lacework.  Next re-perforate the holes onto a thicker pad and make sure you push the needles down as far as they will go.  Some of the 4-needle tools splay out a little so that when you push right through they open up the holes a bit so that it is easier to cut a neater shaped cross.  Keep your scissors fairly flat against the paper when snipping.  Never push your scissors through when snipping, try to pull back.  Have something firm behind the cross you are cutting – a finger or a pad work well (yes! We all get a rough finger).  Make sure you are always cutting the side furthest away from you –in other words the centre of the cross is closest to you, and the scissors go over the centre.   Rotate the work 4 times, I go clockwise, but you may find you get equally neat crosses going the other way.  Rule of thumb – the waste paper is always under your scissors.  VIDEO – video includes how to emboss with the sun tools. 

Cutting the edges of parchment cards.

• To create neat edges, perforate around the edge using a two needle tool, putting one needle into the back hole each time.  You then cut between edge perforations.

 Using the semi square (Pergamano) or half square (PCA)

• Perforate lightly again onto the thin pad.  Emboss dots or a line between the perforations then re-perforate.  Cut the triangle out before cutting the edge.    VIDEO