Handy with a knife!

As a result of some of the samples being shown on the Clarity Stamp TV show on Create & Craft, I have had a few comments about the following 2 cards and how I managed to do the cutting out:

Many, many years ago, long before die-cut decoupage was invented, we all used to spend hours and hours cutting it out with scissors or using a knife - I must admit that I still enjoy it now. However,about 7 years ago, I was working at the Hobby Crafts Trade Show at the NEC, on the stand that I was working on, we had 2 Dutch ladies who had come over to demonstrate decoupage - one of the ladies was using scissors and the other was using a knife - however, instead of using a green self healing mat, she was cutting on glass - when I asked her about it, she said that she was using a piece of glass from an old picture. She explained that by cutting on the glass, the knife resisted and it allowed you to get a cleaner cut and you didn't get any tearing when cutting small, delicate pieces, she did continue to say that it did blunt the blade quicker, but it was worth it, so after the show, I popped off to Ikea and bought lots of the frameless glass picture frames. Then a few years later, one of the US companies brought out a 13" x 13" glass cutting mat which cost £40 - now lots of companies produce them and they are much, much cheaper. I will say that your blades will blunt quicker, and you will cut into the glass!

Anyway, back then I used to work alongside Wendy Stenton of WS Designs who used to create some fantastic templates which had so many uses. One of the series of designs were called Fretworks and they were intricate templates that needed to be cut out with a knife - the glass mat was a godsend and made a bug difference, so I though I would delve back into the archives and see what I could find. All of the following samples have been cut out by hand:

Like all things, the more you do something, the easier it becomes

Thanks for stopping by

Happy Crafting

Paul x