I get some of the BEST emails! So many of you are so sweet to take the time and share things with me. From comments, to photos, exciting news in your life, prayers, art,friendship-all of it! I am so blessed by it ALL!

Sometimes, I wish you would post it here for other’s to enjoy!

THIS particular email I received from Ann Williams-a book binder, was pretty amazing in my opinion. She also sent me a copy of the book she and her friend wrote, in honor of their Mother’s called A Celebration of Motherhood.

Its a collection of Poem’s from the Victorian era. Really beautiful book. Thank you so much Anne. I need your address, so I can send you a Thank You!

I felt her knowledge was not only useful to us as papercrafter’s but should be shared with many! 

Read it, and ENJOY! I was quite grateful to learn something NEW!

This email was copy/pasted, with Ann’s permission. Nothing was changed.

Hi Lauren,

I subscribe to your blog and was reading your article about the scor-pal. when you were talking about your paper cracking when you folded it without scoring I was wondering if you are familiar with paper grain. I am a bookbinder and paper grain is very important. I am surprised to know how many people don’t realize that paper has a grain like fabric. 

If you take a small piece of paper and fold it one way you will see a very different look than when you fold it the other way. One fold will be clean and the other fold will be cracked and wide.

To check for paper grain place the edge of a piece of paper (preferably a 12 X 12 piece of cardstock) on the table and place the palm of your hand on the opposite edge of the paper. Create an arc with the paper by gently bending it and doing a soft bounce. Try to hold the bounce in your mind. Then turn the paper one rotation to have the edge rest on the table and then repeat the bounce. One of the bounces will be a softer bounce with less resistance to your hand.  The softer bounce will be the grain of the paper and also the fold line. I know it is difficult to explain this in words and I wish I could demonstrate it in person. It will change your life. I still believe the score pal is a wonderful tool and I am going to get one myself, but believe me putting the paper on the score tool with the grain along the lines to be scored will still improve the look of your fold.

I will give you another tip. I only buy 12 X 12 paper of any kind. If you find the paper grain on an 8 1/2 piece of paper it generally isn’t big enough to fold it on grain for a regular size card.

It might help you to do a demo on a piece of scrap paper. Just take a mister spray bottle and lightly mist a piece of cardstock. It will curl with the grain. When we make books it is so important that the grains of the bookboards and the papers match. If one goes one way and the other goes the other way it will warp. they fight each other and each it trying to win..

Blessings

Ann

Thank you so much Ann, for writing, and agreeing in sharing this with the world!

Hope you found it informative, and get to test it out 😀

Now a side note-when speaking of the cracking, it wasn’t when I used the scor-pal it was before I used it, and would fold my paper on my own.

I really hope to try this out soon.