 Hi everybody, it's Sam from Mixed Up Craft, thank you for watching today. So I thought I would put together just my five top tips on how to get good results with fussy cutting. It's something I get asked every day, whether it be via email or in the comment on a YouTube video or on my Facebook page. So I thought I'd do this video and hopefully you'll find some useful tips in this one. So I've just stamped this image here and I have these scissors. Now these are the ones that you would see feature regularly. I kind of dip in and out. They're all really nice. These ones are slightly bigger but I have still done fussy cutting with them. But these are probably the ones more so and these are like the snips. So I've got the Crafters Companion, this is Tonic Studio and this is Tonic Studio and I also had an X cut. Now I do have a video showing you how to sharpen or how I kind of clean and look after my scissors and also the tools I love with all of these things in there. But I'll link anything I can below as well. So like I said I haven't really got a preference, I'm going to use these ones today. They just feel nice and they're the ones I've chosen. So get yourself a nicer sharp pair of snips. Okay you want small scissors because you want to be able to get in and out of all the little spaces that you need to cut. Now whatever stamped image you've got if you can cut away any excess. That's not one of my top tips but we'll throw that one in there as well. But just kind of cut close to the image because all of that excess will kind of get in the way really so you don't want it there. So my first top tip is the snips, get the right pair. Okay you want something nice and sharp and you want something that if you always test your scissors when you cut them right to the end you don't want it to split the paper. You see there when I cut it I get a perfect cut. It doesn't break or kind of tear at the end. So if you've got any ones with like a thick point on the end you'll find that that's what will happen because you want to be able to snip right to the end so that's the whole point of them. All right so that's the first tip. The next one is giving yourself a border. I always give myself a white border. Now I know some people like to cut right to the black line. Personally I think you get worse results if you do. If you give yourself a white border if you dip into it a little bit more or you come out a little bit more once you've finished cutting the whole thing you're not going to really notice. Now I try to do roughly about a 2mm border all the way around. So as I'm talking I'm going to go and start cutting this one here. So you can see you know maybe it's 3mm you know but if I go in a little bit too much overall it won't matter. Now you'll notice this is my next tip is that you never move the hand that you're holding the scissors in. Yes you'll be moving the scissors up and down but it's this left hand that is actually controlling the paper and it's the left hand that is moving this around and it gives me that control. And because I've cut away all the excess cardstock I haven't got anything getting in my way. I can turn it right the way around here and I can just glide that paper around the scissors. So all I'm doing with the scissors is just moving them up and down to produce the cut. The movement is actually coming from my left hand. But if you see there you know I haven't stuck to that 2mm border all the way around I've gone in a little bit closer I've probably come out a little bit more. But overall when it's finished you will not know the difference. Now my other tip so this is tip number three I think is you'll see my scissors slightly angled. So I can see this side of my top blade. And that's what you want because it means you can see your image you can see the area that you want to cut to. So it's slightly angled. If you go like that you're not going to be really be able to get into all of the gaps or get as close to the image as you want. And you'll end up kind of folding and cracking and just maybe damaging the actual image. If you keep your scissors on an angle like this you will keep that image nice and flat and you won't lift anything up. So if I went like that can you see his little wing starts to kind of bend up and I'm getting a little crease there. But by keeping the scissors on the side there it kind of takes that away. And again it gives you more visibility, more control. And hopefully you will get good results. As you can see there I'm just coming around to this part and the other final tip is go slow. Do not rush it, you know. Apart from me speeding up the odd little bit I've kept you know you've seen every part of me cut this and I'm just going to finish it around here. And there is a really nice fussy cut image which looks just like it's been die cut. But you can see there by leaving that white border I think you'll get much better results. So hopefully those five top tips will help you and let me know. Pop your comments. If you've got any other good tips that other people might enjoy then please comment below and yeah I'll link in these scissors if I can find them for you. But thanks for watching. Take care, bye.