Love is in the air...

Today, among lots of other things, I'm working on a Valentine's Day present for the Hubby. We tend to keep it mellow for National Flower, Chocolates, and Greeting Card Day - dinner at home, little gifts, that sort of thing. And while I'm not ready to show you the finished project, and don't want to blow the surprise should he see the blog (or someone who does see it tips him off) I do want to share one of the great little thingies that I'm making it with -- a Martha Stewart Stamp-All-Over-the-Page Punch. Now, she doesn't really need any help promoting herself or her products, but I thought I'd share my experience with you on using this.


It's a brilliant concept... most punches only let you get in to the first 1 1/2" or 2" of a page, but with this it can go anywhere allowing you enormous freedom to craft. The punchy part and the hole part are magnetized so they can be taken apart, placed anywhere and then stuck back together wherever you want to punch. I first saw this on Martha's show (she was making a butterfly lamp - not my style but cute for a little girl's room or something) and was skeptical about how well the magnets would hold and how hard it would be to get the two pieces to align, but it turns out that the magnets are strong enough to find each other and match up through whatever paper you're punching.


The particular punch I'm using for my surprise project is the "Studded Heart". I've used it on regular weight paper and card stock, and some card stock that's a little bit thicker than normal. Because this punch has those little tiny "studs" it was really hard to use on the thicker card stock - the punch dented the paper somewhat - and I could easily see the posts that punch through to make the "studs" breaking of if you're working really hard to get it through the paper. The little confetti pieces left over from the holes are pretty cute too... I'm sure that you could find something fun to do with those.

Recently, MS's craft blog, the crafts dept., showed a bunch of heart-themed projects that they put together, and some that would be good year-round. I love the heart flowers on the chocolate brown box and the lattice look of the party invitation.

Images from the crafts dept.

All in all, it's a good product. I give it an A+ for concept, and a B for execution and craftsmanship (I wish it didn't dent the paper.)


(Again, I have not received any compensation whatsoever for this post, I just wanted to share my thoughts on this product with you!)