Scrapbook Page with Scroll Heart Frame

Hi everyone!  I hope that you are enjoying this week's creativity with Martha Stewart's Scroll Heart Punch.  Today I wanted to do a scrapbook page.  I chose Graphic 45's Renaissance Faire papers.  I thought they would match the elegant scrollwork of the punch.

First thing I asked myself was "how do I make a corner punch out of a border punch?"  Many of the punches that Martha Stewart makes do have corner punches that go along with the borders (they are called Punch Around the Page punches.)  The Scroll Heart Punch doesn't have any of that so I had to improvise.

First, here is the result of what I did.

Here is how I did it:

 I flipped the punch over so I could see the actual punching surface.  Any of you who use punches routinely is familiar with this.  I don't think many people have used this technique on the MS punches because they are so well done that you really don't have to.  For this result, you do though.

I put the corner of a 12 x 12 paper in the punch, lined it up and punched once.

This is a scrap piece of paper but I wanted to show you what it looks like.

Next I put the long side of the paper in the punch (looking at it from the back side again).  I lined it up using the punched corner as a reference. (How I lined it up and how you may line it up are purely personal preference.)  You can see in the picture below that I had enough paper in the punch to get everything including the top of the heart punched out.  BUT you can also see that there is a small space between the bottom of the paper and the bottom of the punch.

After I punched this once on each side, it looked like this.

I continued to punch a border but I did NOT use the guides on the front.  Remember that my border is about 1/8" off from the guide.   I continued to punch from the back side, lining up each punch as I went along. I punched a couple of times until I got to where I thought my frame would be big enough. (I didn't measure.)

OK.  Here is the trick.  As you can imagine, punching the first corner was easy.  Punching any of the other corners was impossible because I had no reference and a big ol' piece of 12 x 12 with some punched edges...LOL.  So, I improvised.  I cut a piece of cardstock and punched a corner in it with the same pattern I was using for my frame.

I matched it up with the corner that I punched in my 12x12.  I noticed that the paper covered up the heart.

So, I looked at the border where I wanted to stop and make a corner.  There was the heart.

I took my scrap piece and placed it so that the heart was covered and the corner on the piece of paper was in about the right position for a corner.

I cut my 12x12 right at the edge of the corner.

Now I have a corner, AND a reference, so I can punch my corner.

I used this technique with the other corners and as you can see, it worked really well.

More details:

After I finished punching the frame, I embossed it using copper super fine EP.  I used a writing stamp and versa mark and embosssed the writing design on it.  I added a center paper 4x4 and edged that in copper EP as well.  The four corners are actually pieces I cut from the cover of the paper stack from Graphic 45 (waste not, want not).  I back it all on a mocha cardstock.

I did a little paper tearing and added Aged Mahogany distress ink to the edges. I finished it off with some pearls.  I didn't put a picture or a title on this page.  The picture would go in the middle on top of the green cardstock.  The title can be place either at the top or bottom.  I left room for other embellishments and journaling also.

I hope you enjoyed looking at this project and how to solve the corner punch problem.  Take Care!