Which paper to iron with

Baking paper works and is already in your kitchen. Printer paper welds itself on, foil scorches.

Boxes come with a sheet of glassine — the semi-transparent paper that feels slightly waxy. It is the right tool and it lasts a few dozen goes, but it is also the first thing to go missing in a house with children.

When it does, baking paper from the kitchen drawer does exactly the same job and costs nothing. It is silicone-coated, so the melted plastic will not stick to it, and it is transparent enough to watch the beads through.

Greaseproof paper is not the same thing as baking paper, despite sitting next to it in the shop. It has no silicone coating and it will stick. If the packet does not say the paper is non-stick or silicone-treated, treat it as ordinary paper.

Do not use printer paper. It fuses into the melted plastic and you spend the next twenty minutes picking white fibres out of the surface of a picture you have just finished.

Do not use aluminium foil. It carries far more heat than paper does and passes it straight through, so the beads scorch and go brown before the ones next to them have melted at all.

Do not use cling film or a plastic bag, for the reason you would expect. And do not iron the beads bare: the plastic goes onto the soleplate, and getting it off is a separate afternoon.

A sheet is finished when it browns or when it creases. A creased sheet is worth throwing away rather than flattening — it presses its own creases into the softened beads and leaves visible grooves right across the picture.

One practical trick: use the same sheet for the whole of one project rather than swapping halfway. Paper that has already been through the iron lies flatter and grips less than a fresh sheet, so the second side comes out more even than the first.