You can add so much to cards and papercraft projects with paper piercing!
"Creativity is piercing the mundane
to find the marvelous.
I use my tools and mats often to make lines of paper piercing to embellish my handmade greeting cards. This technique can be just right for when you feel a card 'needs' something more but you can't quite decide what that something is. Here's how to embellish with this technique:
You will need:
- A card blank
- A hole reamer
- A template. Here I used a star shaped one but you can use circles, squares, oblongs, or just lines or rows of lines
- A self healing soft mat
What to do:
- Decide where you would like to place your lines of perforations
- Open the card blank or prepare a shape to be embellished
- Position the card over the mat right side up, and place the template over it where you want to place the lines of holes
- Take your paper reamer tool and punch even holes in the cardstock, using the template as a guide
- Continue placing the holes in the cardstock until you have the desired effect
- Be careful to line up the template accurately if you want the line of holes to continue around a corner, to ensure the lines come out straight
Other ideas to try:
- Make double or triple rows as in the photo above
- Vary your piercings - punch some holes in a line and then leave a gap before making any more
- For a spikier effect, punch the holes on the wrong side of the cardstock
- Ink the spikier holes after you have made them
- Draw lines between the holes to resemble stitching - a white gel pen is very effective on dark cardstock, or use metallic (gold, silver, copper) pens to make the 'stitches' show up
- Create a 'running stitch' effect by drawing a line between every second hole like this ._. ._. ._.
- Investigate your local material shop to see if there are any dressmaking templates that appeal to you for cardmaking projects. Some shops have star and circle shaped templates, for example. (Craft shops and stamping outlets also have kits to make this technique a breeze).
- Use real thread or other fibres to lace between rows of holes and form new patterns
- Punch borders of holes around your scrapbooking layouts
Once you have started paper piercing, I believe you will find many uses for it and will incorporate it into your regular papercrafting repertoire.
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