Workshop 12 Menu
Scarf boxes & Greetings cards
	If you make greetings cards, it's much more expensive to buy ready-made cards than to buy plain card and score and fold it yourself. The drawback is that doing this accurately is quite tricky and time-consuming; I used to use a cutting mat, a ruler and a ball-pointed tool designed for lacé work, or a children's magic cutter, but as cards don't generally come in convenient whole inch or centimetre sizes it was hard to find the centre, and the ruler quite often slipped leaving me with a wiggly crease. Recently however, I've discovered the amazing Accu-Crease tool, which makes the process extremely easy and quick. It consists of a small melamine faced board with 5 grooves and a lip at one edge, plus a wooden tool (see below). All you do is butt your card up against the lip, then run the corner of the tool down the appropriate groove; this creates a perfectly positioned crease line, and you can then fold the card, using the flat edge of the tool to press the fold. Now I can score 200 cards perfectly in about 10 minutes ! It works with various sizes of card including A4 and A5 (though it obviously wouldn't be suitable for someone who always uses aperture cards). Once I got the hang of it, I thought I'd try making a box. I've been painting silk scarves for years, and have always found displaying them at craft fairs etc rather a problem. I use a floor stand that they hang from, but there isn't always enough space for it, and it's difficult to light them - essential, as most venues are lit by fluorescent lights which don't flatter the scarves at all. Artlessly crumpled into a basket, they get creased and have to be re-ironed; if they're hung on the back of the stand people don't like to ask you to take one down. I'd thought for a long while that a nice gift box or envelope would be ideal, but the various designs I'd tried either involved a lot of complicated cutting, or were very wasteful of card, or both. Using the Accu-Crease, I've made a box using just two sheets of A4 card. For the lid, I score each edge of the card, then fold it and make four small cuts on the corners to make tabs to fold in; a piece of double-sided tape sticks them down. The box inner is made in exactly the same way, but with a tiny strip trimmed off a long and short edge first so that the inner is slightly smaller than the lid. As an added refinement, I put the lid through the printer before scoring (see above). It's quick and easy, and I feel that I'm finally displaying my scarves in a way that does them justice. I take them ready boxed now and display a few at a time on the table and I think they look much more classy and worth the price than they did before. I can also put the washing instructions and price loose in the box instead of having to attach them to each scarf - the only downside is that the boxes are not very robust, so I have to be careful not to squash them. The Accu-Crease costs £14.99 + p&from www.diestodiefor.co.uk or telephone 0161 7038909. Thelma Russell
Transferring Designs
	If you have complicated designs to transfer onto a piece of silk, take a photocopy of the image and iron it, face down, onto your flat silk. You may need to increase the heat setting of your iron from silk up to cotton because of the thickness of the paper. The design should appear as a faint but clear outline ready for the gutta outliner to be applied. Please note however, if you are using designs taken from published material be aware that copyright laws may apply. The design sheet included with the Winter issue of the journal is copyright free as are the designs in numerous design books published by Search Press.