Tips & Techniques – Using Punches

When Punches were first introduced into the world of scrapbooking, they only had a few decent shapes and a limited amount of things you could do with them.

These days punches are far more exciting and the range of things you are able to do with them is much wider. Some of the best ranges of punches are:

* Carl

* Marvy Uchida

* Whale of a Punch (WOAP)

* Fiskars

* Francheville

Basically, before you buy a punch, check that is has a decent “weight” – the heavier the better. Why fork out $30 on a punch when it won’t last one year?

Here’s an idea that you can manage with the “Retro Daisy” WOAP in different sizes:

This page was created using just cardstock and a few punches.

Take three sheets of cardstock – one white two another colour. Punch out some of the retro daisy shapes in the top left corner of the white card and adhere to the base coloured cardstock.

With the remaining coloured card, punch out at least 10 large, 16 medium and oodles of small retro daisy shapes. Ink or sand the edges of all flowers and then adhere them around the bottom right corner of the photo in the centre. Attach with glue or buttons or brads.

Here’s another idea:

Punch out three large, three medium and three small circles ouot of different coloured cardstock. Mount them on top of each other slightly off centre (as seen in the bottom right corner of the above LO). They look like kooky embellishments. Alternately, attach a button to the top of each circle “pile”.

Here’s another idea:

Stamp the word “Joy” onto some coloured cardstock. Wait for it to dry, then punch out around the word using a large circle punch and mount off the surface of your page as if they are Christmas balls.

Here’s another idea:

Use the Whale of a Punch “Butterfly” to add a spray of cute butterflies to the bottom right corner of your photo. The best part of that is that each butterfly can be a different co-ordinated colour.

And here’s another idea:

Use your large circle punch to punch out a whole heap of photos of your little ones that show how they have grown from year to year. Mount them in a semi circle and decorate with a heap of left-over letters.

That’s all from me for now – stay tuned because I will add to this punch page soon!

Sares x