Cutting card help please

[redtek]

New at this and am having trouble cutting card and making things square.

Tried a Bookatrix card and could not get the rounded edges even, it ended up bitty and the mirror card got messy.

Also on matting and layering, any tips on making mats perfectly square, mine always seem to be a tad off.

Any help will be appreciated

[happypup]

Hi Red,

I know exactly what you mean...trying to get card absolutely square, for me too, is not always successful. I have bought countless trimmers, guilotines etc... I have found the trimmers with the cutting slot that goes straight down from the blade to be the most effective..I have the Cricut trimmer but there are others that are simmilar..

What you could do is when you have cut your card and it does not seem to be square, take a ruler and straighten up the edge using a pencil or a very fine embossing tool then go back and even up the edge on your cutter or with your scissors. If you have scissors with a decorative edge you could use those or even a border punch would look nice.

If the edge is only very slightly out use the trusty fine line peel-offs which also help to bring your design off the page.

Mirror card does look lovely behind a design but yes it is prone to being marked with our fingers...I have recently heard a tip for getting rid of these marks, which takes a card with a personal touch to another level, hehehe:-) and that is to wipe them off using a very soft cloth such as the ones you get with perscription glasses or any other cloth that does not shed fibres... I hope this helps.

[nettie]

When I started I thought I could cut pretty straight...until I got a paper trimmer and realised how off I was!! I only use a trimmer now and I've got one with changeable wheely blades to make different edges, deckle, wavy, scallop etc...Also if you use a guillotine (I've got a small 10x8 one) and as long as you push the piece of card up and butt up to the top you should always get a straight edge. Do you watch the craft channel? That's what I used to watch when I first started (and still do!)and their demonstrations and showing techniques are pretty close up too...

[kathleen]

I always make sure I have a ruler handy to measure, Im not very good at getting edges straight either. I bought a cricut which is fantastic I now have lots of squares oblongs all sorts of shapes perfect when I use that