How To Use a Paper Trimmer for Scrapbooking

how many times have you come across a sketch pattern and it says to cut your paper to 2 and 3 8 by 4 and 3 16. did your eyes cross and roll back in your head i mean who would have thought that scrapbooking would involve fractions right but as a scrapbooker you gotta read rulers and the biggest ruler you'll ever read is your paper trimmer so in this clip i'm gonna show you how to do just that hi i'm carolyn from crop candy scrapbooking and i teach new scrapbookers simple techniques that you can put into practice right away and today i'm sharing how to use a paper trimmer most times in scrapbooking you don't need to measure your paper however if you use a sketch to create a layout often times you'll have to cut your paper to specific measurements dictated by the pattern therefore especially if you're a new scrapbooker you'll want to learn how to wield a paper trimmer the first thing i want to review are the parts of the trimmer so we've got our grid here with all of our markings of increments we've got the blade track this is where the actual cutting happens this also lifts up this is where you would put your paper in [Music] the blade is right here as you can see and then finally we have our swing arm which is useful for when you have a large piece of paper that's bigger than five inches which is this line right here this particular swing arm goes out to 15 inches now let's look at the measurement markings each of these lines here represent one quarter inch each of the tiny lines in between the larger lines represents a sixteenth of an inch and how we mark that is one two three four sixteenths equals a quarter five six seven 8 16 equals one half we're bringing back our math here 9 10 11 12 16 is three quarters of an inch 13 14 15 16 16 is exactly an inch the other side of our blade track you can also use to cut and measure your paper same principle applies these are one-quarter inch markings with 16 inch markings in between and i like to use this side of the paper sometimes if i'm cutting for example a zip strip or something that's smaller than a half because this goes up to a quarter half and three quarters now it's time for us to actually go ahead and cut something so if i just wanted to cut any old piece of paper i slip my paper underneath the blade track and there we go piece of paper cut pretty simply right better than using scissors suppose i wanted to do a two by two square i would come over here to the two inch mark make my slice okay then i'm going to rotate my piece of paper counterclockwise or to my left right because this is already two inches wide and i want to make it like two inches uh across so i'm going to line it up again on the two inch mark and slice and there's my two inch square i've got another piece of paper i want to show you another way that you can cut with the trimmer with the two different measurements so let's try two inches by one inches so let's go ahead and put our paper in at the two inch mark and instead of slicing all the way through as i did before i'm gonna pull it down to the one inch mark which is right there and then i'm going to flip my paper over to the one inch mark here because you can see where i've already made that first slice and i'm going to do my second slice at one inches at the one inch mark and i'm going to drag it to the two inch mark which lines up to where that original slice is so this and i can also double check here because i know this is one inch this is two inches three inches you can see these guides here kind of tell you um where you are so right here this is two inches and this line two inch mark lines up with the cut i've already made so i'm good there and then i need to make this length two inches so i'm going to come down to that two inch mark and then my 1x2 so that is another option if you're trying to conserve paper it's a little tricky for some folks to do it that way if you're just starting out i wouldn't recommend that but it's another way to help you you know use this particular side here as your guides and this ruler on this side here as your guides sometimes you get a sketch pattern like the one i'm holding here and uh it'll tell you that this particular piece in this case c which is right here is three quarter by eight inches so if i was reading this i would think because i always do length by width the length is three quarters and the height is eight but that's not really the case so if i look at this pattern up here there's no the length is actually eight inches and the height is three quarter of an inches so i'm going to use stripe paper for this little strip if i want my stripes to be this way vertical then i need to make sure that the width of this strip is eight and the height is three quarters of an inch this is where it gets tricky so this is why i say you have to think about the orientation of your paper if you're going to use stripes and other patterns now remember i told you that this piece here you can or i'm sorry this side here you can actually use to measure so one quarter two quarter three quarters that's three quarters and that's the height i need for my strip and now i need eight inches long so i'm gonna put my paper under the guide and i'm gonna find the eight inch mark right here slide it over [Music] and then come over here and make my slice and now that piece is ready for the layout it's exactly how i wanted it with the stripes going vertically and that will be perfect now suppose i wanted to do it the other way where i had the stripes going horizontally left to right well the first cut i would make would be three quarters here for my height and eight inches for my width so i'm going to do is come back over here i'm going to measure at the three quarter inch mark on this side of the blade do my slice and then come over here reposition my paper over to this eight inch mark there and make my slice and there you have two strips they're both three-quarter inches by eight inches but the orientation of the stripes are different the top one has the stripes going vertically and or up and down and the bottom strip has the stripes going left to right or horizontally so when you do your scrapbook layouts and you look at these patterns right you'll have to decide if you decide to use stripes or any other kinds of patterns you'll have to make a decision as to the orientation that you want your particular pattern to take with the different sketch elements and then you'll have to cut accordingly and that's how you use a paper trimmer was this easy for you to understand do you have a different way of using a paper trimmer let me know in the comments below and if you like today's video be sure to subscribe and like and sign up for my e-newsletter at cropcandy.net subscribe for more scrapbooking tips and ideas thanks for watching

Channel: thescrapbookschool

Views: 10,816

Keywords: how to use a paper cutter, how to use paper cutter, how to use paper trimmer, paper cutter, paper trimmer, paper trimmer how to use, scrapbooking, scrapbooking for beginners, scrapbooking supplies, scrapbooking tutorials

Id: wUyWyXGmE2I

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 01 2021