Techniques 1 - Cutting

What, cutting?  Really?  You are going to devote a whole blog to tips on how to cut bits of paper?  Is that even a technique?

Sure, it is.  Years of experience have taught me that, as with most things, there are ways of cutting paper and card that achieve better results than you might first get.  And yes, it doesn't seem like the most scintillating of subjects, but it's kind of important to producing good quality wedding stationery and it seems like a good place to start thinking about the basics.

First, and most important to the discussion, is what are you going to cut with?  Four tools spring to mind: Scissors, craft knife, paper trimmer or guillotine.  You'll need at least one of these and probably a combination of at least two, but if you happen to have all four then you are well and truly sorted.

Now, I can't really imagine a household without a pair of scissors in it, but they'll need to have a decent blade length ( 4inches or more), be clean and above all sharp.  Sharp goes for anything you are cutting with...believe me, when you have hundreds of  pieces to cut there is nothing more frustrating than a blunt blade, in whatever form.  Now, skill with scissors is a personal thing...some people have it and some people don't.  Personally, I wouldn't recommend them for cutting anything other than ribbons, adhesive tape and other bits and bobs.  Small bladed pairs can be used to cut out more intricate shapes if it's this and not a straight line you are after.

A craft knife (looks a bit like a scalpel) has interchangeable blades for when the one that you are using gets blunted.  New blades are fantastically sharp and so every care should be taken to avoid injuring yourself.  Use a craft knife with a steel or steel edge ruler and you can get a lovely straight edge.  Use them freehand, if you are confident enough and you can cut curved and more intricate shapes fairly easily.  You'll get better with practice.

A paper trimmer is great for cutting.  They come with either a fixed or rotary blade, there are a vast array of brands available and they don't cost an arm and a leg.  Most of the trimmers I have used have been better for lighter weight papers than card, but that's not to say they won't cut a good heavy weight.  Most come with a few handy measures already on them so if you know you are cutting A5 pieces you can just follow the guides easily enough.  Often these types of trimmer come with a selection of blades; cutting, scoring and perforating for instance.  Much as I find these trimmers easy and reliable enough to use, I don't actually use one for business.

My preferred tools for straight cuts is a guillotine.  The reason I prefer these over trimmers, is speed of use.  I personally just find it faster when I am cutting  a large number of base cards or mats to use a guillotine.  As with paper trimmers they come with a base board of varying size, pre marked with measures usually in mm and inches.  You can get them with finger guards, but the one's I use don't have them.  It's not that I am reckless, or a natural risk taker, it is simply easier to see exactly where you are cutting and faster to change to the next piece of card.  It also allows for cutting multiple sheets at once, but I avoid this as it can lead to inaccurate cutting.

Tips:

• Keep a small bottle of white or methylated spirits nearby if you are using scissors to cut double sided adhesive tape.  The adhesive builds up your blades and renders them practically useless for anything else.  Use a cotton wool pad with a few drops of liquid and they will clean up and be good as new.

• If you are using a craft knife, consider using a glass cutting mat rather than a self healing mat.  I find I get a better, easier cut and my blades stay sharper for longer.

• Always apply pressure in towards the ruler when using a craft knife for straight cuts.  That way you are less likely to wander off your cut line.  Likewise, keep your ruler on the inside line of your work.

• Change the blade of your craft knife as soon as it starts to become dulled.  Cutting card is much harder with a dull blade and you are much more likely to make errors and waste costly materials.

• When buying a paper trimmer or guillotine go for the biggest base board you can justify.  It's tempting to go for the smaller, space saving options (they often have pull out extension bars after all) but they make cutting base cards or mats larger (longer/wider) than the base board difficult and frustrating.  In the early days of GettingHitched I had one of these and you should have seen what I had rig up to cut anything longer than 14cm!  My advise, do what I eventually had to and buy at least an A4 size, if not A3.

• When using a guillotine always check the accuracy of the measures that are marked on the board by measuring from the cutting edge with a ruler.  If the guillotine is spot on accurate that's great, if not you know you will need to adjust for the discrepancy.

• When you want to cut 50 pieces of card to the exact same measurements, use some repositionable adhesive to stick a flat ruler down to the base board along the line of your measurement.  This makes a straight 'fence' at 90 degrees to the top line of the guillotine that you can butt each piece of card up to.  In this way you are not measuring each piece of card by eye, you are just cutting the card to the measurement set by the fence.  Even if you mismeasured your fence placement by a few mm, each card will still be exactly the same size.