visit Carol Doak's web site- she is kind of the queen of paper piecing and there are lots of hints, tips and help available on the site.
if you check out the pictures from here of the 50 stars in 50 weeks- we are doing them from one of Carol's books- all paper pieced. the first time i tried it on my own i wasted lots of fabric-hated the technique & swore to never do it again- fast forward 2 years & i tried again- with one of Carol's patterns and i've never looked back- it's one of my favorite techniques & very little waste. good luck