Strategic punching

I think by now everyone knows that I love punches and that I'm the queen of using up scraps. Well here is a card I stamped for my friend Jen showcasing a great way to punch strategically to get maximum use out of the card stock and the photo corner punch.

I started off with a strip of bravo burgundy card stock that was shorter than the mat on the card but long enough to allow me to punch three times. (And yes, of course this strip came from my scrap pile). I drew a line with a pencil about 1/4" away from the edge of the card so that the punched reveal would be roughly in the center of the width of the strip. I used this line as a guide to line up my punch. I eyeballed the places to punch along the length of the strip. (In the future I may measure for this too.) Anyway, once I had my line I just punched the photo corners three times, trying to space the reveal equally along the strip length. Now I had 6 bravo burgundy photo corners for use on another project and the remaining strip, which some people would toss in the garbage but I wanted to use as a decoration on my card.

I took out my Think Happy Thoughts set (I love this set -- it goes perfectly with the Happiness background stamp and reminds me of last year's riveting hostess set, which was awesome). I stamped the flower in bravo burgundy on very vanilla card stock and punched them out with the 3/4" circle punch. I then adhered the circles to the little squares left behind by the punch with dimensionals, thus completely hiding the squares and making only the diagonal line visible. I adhered a piece of more mustard Prints Double Sided designer paper to the back of the bravo burgundy strip. I then used my 1/16" handheld circle punch to make holes in the centers of the flowers and inserted three more mustard brads. Now my strip decoration was ready to go.

I used bravo burgundy for my card base and added a river rock mat which I stamped in more mustard with the dotted circle from the Think Happy Thoughts set. I then adhered my decorated strip. I still needed a sentiment, so I used the friendship stamp inked up with bravo burgundy on very vanilla and punched it out with the 1 1/4" circle punch. I added a 1 3/8" circle mat of bravo burgundy. I stamped the flower in bravo burgundy on more mustard card stock and punched that out with the 3/4" circle punch. I added another more mustard brad to the center of the flower. I attached the whole assembled sentiment to the card and voila -- it was ready to go.

I know this card doesn't look like much at first glance, but I simply love how I was able to use every bit of card stock with no waste through strategic punching. I also love how the punched reveal, in combination with the designer paper used in the background, sets off the stamped flower images.

Have you ever used strategic punching to get the most out of your card stock for your projects? If not, I hope this post serves as your inspiration!