Pleased As Punch!

At the risk of sounding like someone from the QVC shopping channel, Martha Stewart Craft punches are superb! Cleverly designed, they enable the dedicated crafter to achieve stunning results with minimum effort.

I have loads of other punches, but have never used a set as good as these snowflake ones which were my Christmas present from Bob

There is a corner punch, which can be used in three different ways; without its ‘wings’ as a regular punch – with both wings as a corner punch, and finally with one wing for punching an ‘internal’ corner on the fold of a card.

Then there is a border punch – the wings on this are printed with snowflake guides, so you can line up your punching accurately

This gives you a straight border or [this is the clever bit] you can combine it with the corner punch to punch round a corner!  You are also given dimensions for punching the four sides of a square.

The largest punch in the set does an amazing deep border- or if you punch all the way along, you get a band of snowflakes

As you’ll see from my first shot, the ‘wings’ fold up for intelligent storage.

The punches are easy to operate and  the instructions are clear.

Initially the downside was all the ‘confetti’ – but even that proved useful.

 

Armed with my punches, some double sided tape, sticky foam pads, and a pack of cheap blank cards from The Works [which turned out to be exactly the right dimensions for punching round] I took my 2010 cards [plus Marion’s which she had kindly set aside for me] and produced my cards for 2011!

I have had enormous fun doing this, using the different punches to produce different effects.

It is also very satisfying to know that is one job out of the way! And good to do it whilst still feeling ‘festive’

I like to make cards which depict some aspect of the true Christmas story [no robins, penguins or Santas!] but this year, received fewer than ever such cards, which is sad. Among the bundle from Marion were only three [and one of them was the one we sent!!]

The ‘non-religious’ cards will get recycled in other ways, don’t worry! And I suspect I shall be discovering lots of other uses for my MS punches too. What a brilliant Christmas gift.