Craft projects using paper punches

By Catalogs Editorial Staff

Ideas for fun craft projects using paper punches and a little creativity

The projects you can make with a craft punch are limitless for the creatively inclined. This simple tool creates shapes with different edging, including clean, scalloped and starburst. Your mission is to use these punched out shapes to your heart?s content.

The beauty of the punch tool is that it?s incredibly easy to use. No technique required! Plus it works with all kinds of materials, including gift-wrap, old postcards and mailers, newspapers and scrapbooking papers, so there?s no need to spend money on supplies.

These fun craft projects with punches are perfect for creating a festive, cheerful atmosphere. Who doesn?t want a little more of that?

Confetti

Use a jumbo tool to make your own confetti for future celebrations. Tossing or popping balloons filled with confetti adds whimsy to important moments and it?s easy to sweep up afterwards. Try it for birthday parties and include handwritten fortunes in the mix.

Making confetti takes time. Put on some music or an audio book so you don?t get bored. Store it in sealed containers because it does have a way of getting tracked around the house by pets and small children.

Love notes

Make your own handmade cards with construction paper and your trusty punch. Use heart-shaped punches for the cover or smear a heart shape with a glue stick and sprinkle small circles over the glue.

Spruce up a frame

Punch shapes out of old paint swatches to create a vivid blend of colors and shades. Place the dots in a geometric pattern around a plain frame or brush glue over? one section at a time ? and cover the whole surface. The resulting frame will be filled with colors and may look best with a black and white or old, faded photograph.

Fancy toothpicks

Next time you?re throwing a baby shower or the child in your life wants to host a tea party, make fancy toothpicks for the snack plate, treats and mini sandwiches. Use a larger punch with scalloped edges and sandwich two pieces around the tip of a toothpick and glue them together. Make these in small batches so you can customize them to the occasion. If things are really fancy, as in ruffles and boas required, make the dots out of lacy paper doilies.

Picnic time

Fun craft projects with punches easily make every day brighter and they’re easy crafts to learn. Save old stickers and the extra sticky paper that often borders stickers. Use these scraps for punching decorative shapes.

Now remember, it?s what you do with the dots that matters. In this case, wrap up sandwiches in wax paper and seal the paper with these punched stickers. Set the wrapped sandwiches in a basket with drinks, napkins and dessert, and you?re all set for a relaxing afternoon.

Unique charms

Make a unique friendship necklace by using photographs of people you adore. Use a 1? tool for punching out a whole word, name or image. Coat it in clear mod podge with a little gloss. When it dries poke a hole with a safety pin and string it through a bracelet or necklace.

Add movement to floral arrangements

Martha Stewart suggests using large butterfly punches to enhance an arrangement of fresh blossoms. Cut the butterflies from a color that?ll contrast with the cut flowers. Attach them to the end of pipe cleaners or thin wire of different lengths. When you insert the wire in the vase between the flowers it?ll look as though miniature butterflies are fluttering around the petals. The effect is gorgeous.

These fun craft projects with punches only scratch the surface of what you can make, but it?s a good place to start. And now you have a valid excuse for saving interesting papers. Plus these projects make use of old scraps. No waste!