Craft & Scrapbooking Paper Punches

Craft and scrapbooking paper punches are more than just your basic shape cutters.

You can still find ones that will cut simple geometric shapes, such as hearts, circles, squares and stars. However, now many of them do much more. You can use them to make borders for your layouts and cards, to emboss or stamp the shapes they cut, to round the corners on your photographs, and the list goes on.

Keep reading to find out about all the different things that craft paper punches can do...

Corner Rounders

The corner rounder is a great tool, and if you don't have one, I highly recommend that you pick one up.

A corner rounder does basically what its name implies - it's a punch that will round the square edges on your photographs and other page elements.

It's very simple to use too. With most brands, all you need to do is line the edges of your photo or paper up with the guides inside the corner rounder, and then squeeze the handles or punch down, making sure to hold the item being cut firmly in place.

Embossing and Stamping

There are scrapbooking paper punches that will emboss your cutout shape. For example, I have seen ones that can be used to punch out leaf shapes, and at the same time, add embossed vein details on the leaf punch outs, giving them more dimension.

You can also find punches that will not only punch out the shape, but stamp a design on it as well. Martha Stewart has a line of scrapbooking paper punches that do exactly this, allowing you to cut out and stamp details on leaves, birds, butterflies, cupcakes, and flowers.

Border Punches

In addition to shapes, there are border punches, which allow you to cut intricate details along the length of your paper, creating borders for your layouts and handmade cards.

Most of these are just a few inches long, but they can be used to cut borders of twelve inches, and even more if needed. Some even emboss too!

For example, let's say you were doing a 12x12 scrapbook layout, and decided that you wanted to create a border for it. Using the border punch, you would start in the middle of the border, and push down. You would then move the punch either to the left or the right, line up the dots on the design with that on the punch, and push down again. You would repeat this process until the entire border has the design.

Add Stitching with Scrapbooking Paper Punches

Stitching is a popular way to embellish scrapbook layouts. Although many crafters think they need a sewing machine (or at least decent hand sewing skills) to accomplish this look, the good news is that it's easy to accomplish with the help of a paper punch.

These are very similar to border punches, in that you start in the middle, and move to either side, until all the holes needed for stitching have been punched out. Once all the holes are made, you then use them as guides to "sew" thread or ribbon details into your layout.

Paper Punch Alternatives

Scrapbooking paper punches are fun and easy to use. However, there is one disadvantage - for each shape and size that you want to cut, you have to buy a different punch. If you are limited on space or want to avoid a huge collection of punches, there are alternatives.

One alternative is to purchase a die cut machine. With manual machines, you will need to buy different dies for the shapes that you want to cut, but these take up less room and are easier to store than traditional punches.

Automated machines are even better. Many of them can cut different punch-style shapes in a variety of sizes, using just one cartridge or design card. For example, the Making Memories Slice can make punch-out style die cuts, ranging in size from one to four inches. They even have a tag maker, which puts metal rims and tag around the shapes.

Another alternative is to purchase a shape cutting set and cutting mat. The Fiskars ShapeCutter is a popular example. It comes with a handheld shape cutting unit, a self-healing mat, and different templates for cutting shapes, as well as borders.

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