Everything* I needed to know about Piercing ...

I learned this weekend! One of my favorite tips(and new tools!) I discovered at our Arlington swap was shared by Jody Morrow texasjodylynn, my fellow DD alum who I met for the first time! (I was SURE I got a pic taken with her, but I guess it was on someone else's camera, sorry!) Anyway, here she is busy rocking out cards while I'm posing with the lovely Sharon Harnist(gushing about Sharon to follow in a later post!)

This was the card Jody designed for us to assemble:

See how perfectly spaced the little holes are around the punched circles? She provided a round template to use as a guide for piercing the circles around the punched holes! After I finished my card I had to run and ask her what the heck that thing was so I could get one for myself! She explained they are used for needlework, and then whipped out a rectangular piece of it that was cut to the same size as an A2 card, which allows you to do any type of framing border/ corner/lattice/design you want without having to move it like the SU! piercing guide! I seriously swooned over this info(because the card I designed required moving my SU! template I brought for my station a couple times to do the whole thing, see?) I went to Hobby Lobby today and found a pack of 10 circles for $1.17, and a sheet I can cut into probably 10 rectangles (Edited to ADD: actually only 5, I just cut it!)for only 39 cents!! Look how many different sizes circles you can do!! (I think I count 12?)

The trick to this guide (since the squares are bigger than your piercing tool) is to remain consistent as you go through the design with where you poke the hole. For example you might find it easiest to poke right in the center of the square, if you do this, alway poke in the center. Or if you choose the outside edge, do that all the way around for consistent spacing, etc. It's really easy!

I plan to distribute most of the extra circles and grids to my local stamping buds here, but I'll hang on to one of each and send them to one person who leaves a comment on this post! Share a tip that will rock my world or something about how you like to use piercing in your papercrafting, and I'll request an addy from one of you this Thursday AM. (Like I said, they're not expensive if you want to just go buy your own, but it'll save you a trip to the store :) If you don't win and like to pierce or even if you don't becuase you think it's too much work, you simply must add these to your stamping tool box IMHO!) ;)

I have all sorts of designs in mind now that I have these templates that will be so easy to work with, but getting this important info to you ASAP before I started playing was a stamping emergency! Please check back for more ideas (using my sets, of course LOL!) on how to make the most of them! ;)

* well, practically everything. I've learned lots of other fabulous piercing techniques from others before this, but now I feel my piercing training is complete!!!

PS I just noticed it looks like I have the world's worst posture! As I review all my pics from the trip I see I'm leaning in to everyone to look chummy and 'cause I thought they were doing tighter shot! oh well! I feel I should also confess I'm not taller than the people I'm standing by, wearing platforms, hee!