Less is More 108 - Paper Piercing

Challenge #108 at Less Is More is paper piercing.

I've never used paper piercing before except as an aid do embroidery, so I wasn't quite sure what to do for this week's challenge. An insect flight path? A border? For the flight path I would have needed  to so some freehand drawing and I'm hopeless at that - that's what drew me to stamping in the first place.

So I had a go at a border. Several attempts ended up in the bin, before I realised I needed to measure out where to place the border before starting the piercing!

I'd hoped the dark card would show up through the holes better - perhaps I should have wiggled my pokey tool a bit more? (oooh Mrs!) and I still think the holes would have served better as the basis for some stitching.

So I decided to try a completely different angle and pierce an outline. First of all I used a rosebud stencil sponging the design through the stencil. Then I outlined it with piercing. This too involved several attempts - at first I was so keen to produce a sharp outline that I pierced the holes far too close and ended up perforating the image so it could be punched out of the card! Here is my finished effort - I think if I were to do this again I would try to improve it by adding in some of the detail such as veining on the leaves and separate petals on the bud, but then we're getting back to the freehand work that I'm so bad at!

Well, I gave it a try - but I think from now on I'll be leaving paper piercing to the parchment craft experts and the wonderful things they do with it!