Tip Tuesday: Faux Stitching

Today the team would like to present some tips for achieving the look of stitching on your cards and scrapbooking projects.

Tip #1
No matter how you pierce your paper use a gel pen to draw your stitches, and be sure to go right into the holes when drawing your stitches.

Tip #2
Use a sewing machine without any thread in it to pierce your holes; they will be perfectly spaced and even.

Tip #3
If you want to pierce your paper by hand, use a piece of plastic canvas as a guide. Pierce at every second or third square of the canvas. And don't forget that plastic canvas comes in cool shapes, too. Canvas circles are wonderful for "stitching" along curves!

Tip #4
Drywall tape is also a great tool for faux stitching. Place a piece of the tape on the surface you want to "stitch" and use your gel pen to draw a straight line across the tape along one line of the mesh. Remove the tape and you will have fake stitches, without the pierced holes.

Tip #5
There are a lot of really great stitches stamps available at FranticStamper. Think about using these to add stitches to your project by stamping them with a color-coordinated ink. I especially like these embossed on my projects!

Tip #6
If you are piercing paper to draw between stitches, pierce two lines instead of one. You can then connect the two lines to form herringbone or cross stitches to add even more interest to your card.

Tip #7
You can get a great faux blanket stitch by piercing a single line of holes. Instead of connecting the holes with fake stitches, draw lines from the holes to the edge of the paper. Then draw a line right along the edge of the paper. This is a really different but fabulous look!

Tip #8
Use more than one line of straight stitches. Draw two lines of stitches right next to each other for the kind of stitching you see on a pair of jeans. This is especially fun done in orange or yellow gel ink on pale denim blue paper.

Tip #9
Use the Sew Easy Stitch Piercer to make your holes. Nothing says that you have to use real thread once the holes are pierced! You can "stitch" with ink!

Tip #10
There are a lot of wonderful templates for stitching on paper available at FranticStamper. These can be used with drawn stitches as easily as they can with real stitches!

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