To me nothing has beaten the Crayola kids markers with the 'broad line' tips. You can use the side of the broad tips to just slide along an edge with little fear of slipping. Unlike smaller tipped markers where you end up trying to keep a small tip or short side along the edge. These markers also don't bleed up into the card stock like other markers do. Plus they come in tons of different colors. I happen to only use black, grey, and dark brown. Not to mention they are pretty cheap and if you got kids you probably have some already laying around that your wife bought =)



Something else that helps me is to color most of a tab as well. Often times I find it very difficult to perfectly line up an edge of a folded tab to the other edge that it glues to. Thus if the tab is colored as well as all of the edges you don't notice that it may be .5 mm off! Another common spot I'll color is the inside where a top comes down and a tab glues to the inside top edge. Again if the top slips down half a mm you won't notice it at a distance because the inside surface was colored.

To do this though I end up edging before any gluing. What I typically do is score, cut out, (then do any reverse scores), color edges, color tabs, then glue stuff together. Why I edge so early is because if you try to edge at the end to cover your mistakes you end up getting marker all over places you don't want it (like perpendicular surfaces) and it's really hard to get the tip of a marker down in to some of those cracks (again with out getting it where you don't want it!) I've even tried using 'fine tip' and 'very fine tip' markers to get in there; it's just much easier to color any potential problem spots before gluing.

When I edge, I fold every crease to its maximum (as in flatten the page) and edge the opening. Yes, you get a bit of seperation of the page, but it ends up looking better and as long as you dont pick at it, its just fine. Plus, if its really bad, you can go back with a tiny bit of Tacky Glue and shore up the joints.

I always edge right after I cut a part out. The printed side is turned away from me so if the edging tool slips it will mark the back of the piece. I also fold any glue tabs and color along the fold to help hide any slight misalignments. The Prang pencils that are used can be blended a bit to help match the color ( and the colour too).

My scoring does not entail making shallow cuts in the part along the fold line. A small tipped crocheting needle encased in a wood handle is used. Instead of cutting the fold line a shallow indentation is scored along the fold line. That method has worked great.

I'm glad you brought that up Doug; I noticed in the instructions for Thoumonts it mentions to use a dull edge to 'score' the roof peak so that you wouldn't have to come back with a marker and 'edge' it.

Staples also has a cutter/scorer (something similar to , but not sure if this is it) that cuts and scores. The scoring is the non-cut kind, so I left it there, but I may go back and try it out, especially since TLX has a lot of long scores. However, I may have the same "laser" issue of flaking....hmmm.

Thanks Halcy for the tip.

I grabbed a similar embossing tool from Lincraft here on Oz for about $4.

It has stopped the dreaded breaking of my score lines.



Cheers,

Geomod

I pilfered a few of my wife's Crayola Super Tip markers and really liked them. Still have a nice broad edge for edging but a finer point for getting in to tight spots. Plus it seemed to lay down color more evenly and consistently with out putting to much down or bleeding. Another fine choice I would say.

I made an interesting discovery recently at my local dollar store, a three pack of brown markers called "Furniture touch-ups". Apprently you're supposed to use them on furniture... the FOOLS! Brown markers are troublesome to come by for less than exhorbitive amounts of money but these are cheap, CHEAP, CHEAP!

Word of warning: they do smell quite strongly and they bleed about as much as a standard magic marker-type marker but for $1 I'm not exactly complaining...

I picked up a bunch of the Bic MarkIt Fine Points (10 for $7 at Staples), and am sad to say that they bleed into the edges like crazy. I'm using laser prints, so the fact it's bleeding out over onto the toner is very disconcerting.

I have been using a Tombow black dual tip for edging, and it works quite well - no noticeable bleed. I'm planning on ordering some Prismacolors in the specific colors I want as I cannot find a store that carries them locally (and Dickblick has them for half price).

Store them tips up until they get used a bit, then store them tips down. I have multiple pen holder cylinders on my craft desk for the different pen stages.