hi it's kate with tested today i'm going to share with you some of my favorite tools
for paper craft now the biggest part of that is going to be my favorite cutting tools
i've got a few different blades here i've got some tweezers some scissors and some glues
and we're going to go over some of my very favorite things to do with them
now if you have seen my past favorite things videos you might recognize this fingertip
craft blade here this is by fiskars actually a lot of my tools are by fiskars i just really like them
i promise it's not a paid promotional anything they're just awesome so the thing that's cool
about this is you'll notice it's got a little loop so it holds tight over your knuckle and it really
helps take a lot of the pressure off of your hand if anybody's ever done a lot of cutting just with
a regular exacto blade you might notice that you start to get a lot of indentations a lot of pain
so something that's really nice about a knife like this is the fact that it lets you sort
of more ergonomically hold the blade as you do some cutting i'll give you an example of
how some of this looks so here we have just a piece of construction paper pretty pink
and i'll show you here one of the things i really like about using this knife is
it allows you to do a lot more curvature and there's free movement that you can do with this
so you can see how nice and easily you can just get some nice like s-curves going on
if you've got a template you're cutting out it's really really nice moves smoothly and almost no
pressure on my other fingers so this is probably my number one go-to knife no matter what i'm
cutting i grab for this one all right next up we have more of a traditional blade this might look
like one you've used before of any other brand again this is fiskars i like that it's rather
robust you might notice this like i feel like you could do some damage it's pretty solid metal
it's got a really good padded finger area here again i tend to use a lot of pressure when i do
cutting so anything that's going to take some of that strain off my fingers is really helping
not much to it it's just like most blades you've used before
just glides right through like that
this one is probably something i'd go towards if i was going on a job and i needed one knife that
i knew that could do everything i also tend to go for a more traditional craft blade when i am
doing things that require a lot of scraping if i'm trying to remove something or get in
some crevices or anything like that a lot of times i end up using craft blades for
not cutting so if you're trying to use that blade to do anything else doing some scraping
digging stuff out whatever this is a really nice one to have this is the most versatile by far
alright now this one is a really fun funky little guy i had never seen or heard of anything like
this before first you've got this guard here which my instinct is just to pull it right off
that pulls the blade out so don't do that you'll notice there's a little arrow on here
and that just means pull this way so it pulls out to the side first step getting the cap off
obviously the most unique feature about it is this shape here and you're probably wondering like what
is the deal with that so the way that it works is you'll notice it fits really nicely in your palm
like this so again if you're trying to do a lot of cutting and you want to take the strain off your
fingers this is a great option for that so you can find a really nice ergonomic grip that works for
you and then the lower part that connects to the blade is actually rotational so you might call it
a swivel although the blade itself doesn't swivel so it's more about you can turn the top of it
this is really good for doing fine detail work you'll notice how teeny tiny this blade is so
there's there's your first clue about what kind of work you're going to want to do with this
um again you can really get in there and just like super fine detail work if you have some
sort of a stencil or a pattern that you're trying to cut around and maybe you've got just the most
tiny facial details or any kind of line detail this is fantastic i absolutely love how small
you can go with this um everything is so easy almost no pressure required again one of the
uh biggest tips i have for anyone i say this no matter who i'm talking to change your blade often
change it more often than you think you need to because it's going to save you it's going to be
the difference between going to make that one cut and realizing you're tearing your paper as opposed
to just gliding right through it and the sharper your blade the less pressure you have to use
so this is an extremely sharp new blade and i'm just barely having to touch the paper and it comes
off in these teeny tiny little splinters which are just fantastic i would never think i could
make something that tiny so this is a really nice knife right here now uh the last blade i have here
is kind of interesting looking you'll notice it looks pretty big it reminds me of if you've
ever used like a leno cut speed ball cutter it where it's got this big fat base here the
reason why it's so big is because it's actually interchangeable so you'll notice i have this case
right here again from fiskars and you open it up and you'll see it's actually full of a ton of
different kinds of blades so you've got what are actually a bit larger than your standard number 11
blades and that's what's in this right now you've got sort of your flat chisel blades you've got
more of an angled chisel blade you've got your scalpel blade and you even have a few different
kinds of saw blades so this is an all-around tool if you really don't know what you're going to be
needing to cut or if you know that you're going to need to be cutting a lot of different things so
this is super versatile you can really do anything you want with it and like i said the the main
blade that goes in it is bigger than your standard number 11 so it's going to be a bit more hardy
and be able to tackle maybe some thicker materials maybe some balsa anything like that the way that
it works is you slide the cap off again and this bottom yellow orange part here flips open and that
opens up this part here where you can swap out your blade you can see like look how beefy that
is that's much bigger than your your typical blade um slide that in clamp it back down good to go
so now that we've covered the different knives that i like to use just once more i want to cover
some blades now my go-to blade is still an exacto brand um and you'll notice that this one is blue
it is a standard number 11 but it's um the x life which sometimes can be a little harder to find i
find myself just ordering them online if i can't rely on being able to find them in a hardware
store um they are meant to last longer now i like i said i like to change my blades often but being
able to rely on the fact that it's a hardier blade one that's going to withstand a bit more of the
damage that i inflict on it uh i find it's worth it to spend the extra money get the good quality
blades get the most out of it while you can and then don't treat them preciously chuck them away
in a sharps container and just keep changing them you're you're going to think yourself so
much when it makes your whole life so much easier okay so those are the kind of blades that i like
another way of cutting obviously is with scissors now i don't need to tell you about
any like standard big size scissors everybody knows you know like a lot of people already
have scissors they like it's sort of a preference thing one thing i will recommend is having a tiny
pair of scissors now these are what i would call my like small to medium because they're not the
smallest pair i have trust me i've i've got some teeny teeny tiny ones but just having a pair of
detail scissors is really helpful if you do find yourself in a situation where you're cutting out
some sort of a pattern or a stencil and you need to get in there in a way that either
your blade isn't reaching properly or maybe you want to do a slightly larger section whatever
the case if you want more straight lines because sometimes it's easier to make a longer straight
line with a scissor blade these are a pair of singers which you know they make great scissors um
but i like to always have a little pair of detail scissors on hand with me and again really good
to keep your scissors in pretty good shape take good care of them try not to use them on anything
too damaging or if you do and you find them getting dull get them sharpened or get a new pair
take care of your tools and they'll take care of you all right now that we have cut out all of our
tiny pieces i'm gonna move along to what to do with some of the small pieces once you have them
cut um if anybody has ever worked with something small before obviously my field is miniatures you
might be familiar with tweezers now these are sort of more of a standard pair of tweezers that i have
these i think i found in a toolbox that was given to me so really nothing special just a kind of
standard pair of tweezers the only thing that's different about them is they do have like a little
nub on the inside of each um tong sometimes it gets a little annoying but this is more of
your standard one if i'm trying to pick up you know little pieces it's totally fine acceptable
can do a number of different things they're not my favorite tools though
so if you want something a little more specialty you can do something like this
again this is fiskars you'll notice the same similar finger grip here something
that's interesting is these are actually the reverse pressure ones so it's a little bit
more like is it like forceps basically where you squeeze down to open them and then you can
clamp over your piece and now i'm not requiring all of that force on my hand to hold this piece so
if you're knowing that it's going to take you a little while to get your piece into place
uh you know that could be nice and then all you have to do is gently let go by squeezing it
and that that lowers the amount of time you're having to put force on an object uh if you don't
like the direction of these that's totally fine they come in you know a number of brands make
these and they aren't all finger grip find what works for you obviously this is all about your
comfort and making sure it works nicely these are some pretty awesome ones these are called sizzix
um i believe they're for scrapbooking uh i find that there's a lot of handy dandy tools
for scrapbooking that i end up using a lot so they come with a little cover because these are almost
like needle tips they're very sharp and this will help protect them from either stabbing you
or getting dulled so remove your tip and then it's pretty standard i mean it's a pair of tweezers you
know what to do you squeeze them when you want to go down they do have this nice curve which i find
i like and the thing that's great about these is that you can really get in there for some
detail grabbing i can hold this by the tiniest edge um and then get it in place and then very
gently let go one of the hardest things is if you're if your tweezers are a little too grabby
you get your piece of paper exactly where you want it and you try and let go and they
stick to your tweezers and then you lose your registration when you try and let go so uh it's
it's important that you like both the way they grab and the way they release and also it takes
i don't think it takes too much force to hold these down so i'm not feeling as much fatigue
as you might if you've got some sturdier tweezers on you but these are these are
probably some of my favorite ones um and i i really like the ergonomic design of them
it's just a really handy dandy little tool all right so that covers all my grabbers as i'll say
and now the last part i want to cover is what to do as you're placing these things now obviously
a lot of paper craft requires glue there are a number of different products you can use one
of the most common ones is going to be super 77 spray 77 whatever you call it it is basically a
spray adhesive it works a lot of the same way as say like a rubber cement would where you apply it
to two sides let the two sides kind of dry for a little bit get tacky and then stick them together
i tend to use this if i am doing more of a larger scale thing if i wanted to glue
this whole piece of paper to a surface obviously spray 77 is going to be the easiest thing to do
because it's going to evenly coat i'm going to be able to let it dry
and then i can really nicely apply one side smooth it down and get full contact
some people can have a little bit of warping or bubbling with spray adhesive so really best to
do your tests make sure it works nicely for you and again there's a number of brands of
spray adhesives so you might find that one works better for you than another and some
are more aimed at paper some are removable not permanent so shop around this is what i always
have in the shop for a number of different uses so i tend to go for it but see what works for you
now if any of you are like hardcore crafters you probably grew up with some mod podge
i love this stuff the thing that's great about modge podge is that it is both a glue
and a sealer so you can use it to stick down the piece that you're working with
and then also coat on top of it and it creates a protective layer if any of you have ever done
any decoupaging any collage artwork this is the stuff you use you're gonna use it to stick down
all your little bits of cut out paper pictures and then you're gonna coat the whole thing in it
it comes in a variety of finishes so if you want a gloss finish if you want a matte finish if you
want an antique finish so it looks pretty old this is this is sort of my go-to for
a lot of things when i'm not too concerned about it being hyper polished and finished or archival
also you can get it in just these giant tubs this is also really good if you're doing other things
like maybe working with foam you can use it as a sealer for that there's there's many uses for
this but as far as it goes it's it's intended for use with decoupaging and collage stuff
it's wonderful get you a tub of it now if you are worried about it being archival if you are simply
trying to do some paper gluing in a way that will last and not warp and not yellow over time
you cannot beat pva so pva stands for i can't remember poly vinyl adhesive something like that
in a lot of ways and correct me if i'm wrong i i'm pretty positive it's essentially white glue
it is very similar in every way shape and form to white glue the difference is
that it is ph neutral so you can glue something down now even if a bit of it shows off to the side
and in a few years it is not going to turn yellow it is not going to look discolored this is museum
quality pva adhesive so this is my go-to for most everything if i'm doing a professional job
and i know that something's gonna need to stand the test of time this is what i use it is really
wonderful if any of you saw the blimp video where i attached little advertisements to the bottom
of the bladerunner blimp i used pva glue for that because i know that that's something that adam
is going to want to keep for years and years and i did not want it looking worse over time
um i can't recommend this enough i believe it can be a little bit pricey but honestly like
you can see how big of a tub this thing is and i use it quite a lot and it's still like
only got that much missing from it so it'll it'll get you quite a ways all right that is everything
for my paper craft recommendations thank you for checking it out make sure to let us know some of
the favorite tools you have or maybe some projects that you like to use them with bye