Punching a perfect border

 The polka dot paper that I used for a few cards recently is actually the opposite side of this wonderful glittery striped paper from Martha Stewart.  I wanted to use the "right" side for a card.  A few people have asked me about using the border punches to get an even result for a card so I thought I would do a quick step by step explanation.

I used the Martha Stewart Daisy Fan deep edge punch.  The deep edge punches are enormous!  You have to plan your storage for these large punches.  They do have the sides that fold in which is very helpful.  I wish some of my older regular size border punches had that feature.

If you look carefully on the edge of the side pieces, you can see the quarter inch markings that I used to align the punch.  There is also a large silver imprint of the pattern of the punch that is used to make perfectly matched repeats.

I used my clear layout ruler to measure the edge.  I wanted to make an A2 card and would be using the punch on the layer which is 5 1/4 inches by 4 inches.  I put the ruler at the third line from the left and the edge is even with the small circle in the border design.

This particular punch works out perfectly for an A2 card.  If you look at the 5 1/4 inch mark it lines up just at the edge of the circle.

To make the punched border, I placed the cardstock in the punch making sure that the ends were even with the 1/4 inch measurement marks along the edge.

 After punching the cardstock looks like this.

Then,  I moved the paper to the right side of the punch and carefully lined up the punched design in the cardstock with the printed design on the side flap.

This is how it looks after two punches.

 Then I shifted the cardstock to the other side, once again making sure to line up the punched design with the printed design.

The final border is perfectly centered on the card layer.  I put the design at the top because it made me think of fireworks exploding in the air.

The word "Celebrate" is from the Straight from the Nest cartridge and is cut at 1 3/4 inches tall.  I used a dark blue Core'dinations paper to cut to give it a good contrast and weight on the glittery stripes.

You have to play around with your punches to see what sizes they were designed to punch evenly along an edge.  By practicing on some plain paper you will be able to determine the best sizes for creating a perfectly centered punch.  Once you do this , it might be a good idea to keep a notebook with a list so you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time you use that punch.

I hope you have collected all of the letters for the Scrappy-Go-Lucky International blog hop.  For all of the information and the list of blogs, please go to THIS POST.  Comments must be left on that post only if you want to have a chance to win the prize of a pen set, provided by Scrappy-Go -Lucky.  For the Grand Prize of four Cartridges (Cindy Loo, Freshly Picked, Mini Monsters and Wall Decor & More) you must email Mandy the correct answer to the anagram by Friday the 18th (in Australia - remember it is usually tomorrow there!).  Good Luck!

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