Friday, July 13, 2012

A very short tutorial - thin border to frame your DP's

You probably have noticed that I always have a thin border framing the designer papers on my cards.  Quite a number of people have asked me how I create the border--which surprised me because I thought everybody knew how to do this already.  I guess I've been doing it for so long that I don't think about it anymore...LOL...and forget that not everyone is in the same boat. 

Simply put...it's just a matter of having your designer paper slightly smaller than your background cardstock, approximately 1/8" (or 2 to 3mm smaller).

And ladies, I do this the hard way...LOL...by using my small scissor and do the cutting by hand.  It's time consuming, but I do like how it makes the cards look, so I think it's worth doing the extra work.
Straight edges are easy to do--you can use your kraft knife and a ruler.  But for curves/shapes, you use your small scissor.

There are 2 ways of making the slightly smaller shapes:

1st Method.  
Pencil draw the inside edge of your die.  Then cut along the drawn line.


2nd Method
Cut and embossed using your die and die-cutting machine.  Then cut along the embossed outline. 


If you want an even thinner border, say 1/16", then cut somewhere between the outside edge and the pencil-drawn/embossed line.

Once you've done this hundreds of time...hee hee, you get to be good at judging the border width that you won't need to make the pencil/embossed lines anymore--at least that's how it is with me.  

I like to ink distress my edges first before glueing/attaching the shaped DP onto the shaped cardstock.


The only time I get a break from having to handcut and am able to use my dies is when I do plain and scallopped circles and ovals.  I can use my Spellbinders dies then, because they do make them in 1/8" increments.

There you go!  Happy creating! 

5 comments:

Merry said...

Great tutorial thanks.

Vivien said...

Got it now!
Thankyou so much for taking the time to explain this technique.
Love it

Kit L said...

Love the borders for your DP. Always amazed at the amount of layers in your cards. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at free hand cutting with my scissors. My first reaction is thinking that your 2nd method looks easier but on second thought the first method is probably easier for me to try.

Jenz Bitz 'n' Bobs said...

Beautiful card. Love the colours and the shape of card you've used. Jenny x

Kit L said...

Thanks for sharing your technique. Are there any scissors you would recommend for this technique? I have a couple of sharp ones including the honey bee but cutting free hand always scare me a bit since it's so easy to make a mistake...

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