Beyond Envelopes: Try these Genius Hacks!

Do you think all you can make with this envelope punch board is envelopes? Think again. Today I'm going to show you five additional things that you can make using this fabulous little tool. Let's get crafting. Let's start with basics and show you how to make an envelope. Now this comes with all of the measurements for various envelopes and I'm going to use the A2 size which is asking for 8 1 8 inches by 8 1 8 inches. So I'm taking out my paper trimmer and I've got just a random sheet of paper and I'm going to cut that down to the square. Everything here revolves around a square so in this case 8 1 8 and then I'm going to flip it around and I'm going to trim that down to 8 1 8 as well. So we need the other measurement which is going to tell you the starting point. So this is 3 3 quarters inches and as you can see across the top left there is a 5 inch rule. Now this also houses a little bone folder there but I'm lining up the left side of my paper to the 3 3 quarters inches and then I'm going to take the bone folder and there's a score mark there that I'm going to go ahead and run that up against. Now I'm going to flip it around. You do not need any other measurements. You are going to line up that little tail end which is the scoring guide to the score line you just made. Punch and then go ahead and create a new score line. Flip it around, use your score line, line it up, punch and do your next score line. One more time. Turn it around, line it up, punch and run your score line and that's all there is to this. Taking a closer look at our score lines you will see that it creates a rectangle and that rectangle is where our A2 size four and a quarter by five and a half inch card is going to All righty it's time to turn over the cardstock and go ahead and you can either use your fingers or a bone folder and you want to burnish all of your scored lines. So you're just going to work your way right around the envelope. As you can see it's already made that envelope appearance. Now we just have to use some glue. I am going to use some tape runner but you can use whatever glue you like and on the back side of your envelope punch you'll find that there's a corner rounder there so that's kind of a little freebie. So I'm just going to apply tape runner to the edges of the two little wings or the two little flaps and that's the only glue you need except for when you go ahead and close up your envelope and that's pretty much it. Now let's test it. This is just a cardstock from a previous video and it fits perfectly. With the basics out of the way I decided to look towards some border. Now I used to be a school teacher. I still have quite a bit of border and that inspired me to create my own border. Now I'm just taking some strips of paper. It doesn't matter how wide it is. I have opted to move my paper along one inch and punch. You can also change up how often you punch and that's going to change the decorative edge that you end up creating. For this one I am moving my paper along every half inch. Now this time I have gone back to my one inch punch. I happen to like that the best and once I reach the end of my five inches I'm going to flip it over and I'm going to punch on the other edge and I create a sort of rippled background or rickrack. There are truly so many things you can do to create stunning cards like this one. Now using heavy cardstock, this one is two inches by three inches, but you can make it any size you need. I am going to put a one inch punch on all four sides of this particular piece of cardstock because I'm going to make a bobbin for some ribbon. Now you can use this for floss, you can use it for lace. You're going to see that I put two on this one. It's big enough and then it folds flat because this is leftover ribbon and lace that didn't have a home and I'm just going to go ahead and wind that right along there. You can add a hole punch if you want to put them on a ring. I just am going to put them into a flat container and I secure with a pin. Here's some ribbon. Nope, that's the ribbon and the lace. Now obviously the lace takes up more room but I get two and it's organized and no longer floating around in my drawer. Library pockets are a great way to add a pocket for a gift card inside of a greeting card, use in your journals to put tags or memorabilia, whatever the case may be. So the size is up to you. There is no specific requirement for a library pocket. I've chosen to make mine four inches wide by eight and a quarter. Why I came up with that number I can't tell you. It doesn't really matter. Fold the bottom up and leave about an inch to the top. I'm going to go ahead and using my fingers and then my bone folder I'm just going to burnish my crease and open it back up and use my envelope punch to punch the center of the crease. So I am just looking on the left side to see where my cardstock lines up so that when I flip it over I can put it in the exact same place so my punches are directly opposite of one another. After you've created your punch you need to create the flaps for closing up your pocket card. Now I'm going to do this two different ways and the second way I found to be a little easier. The first way I'm going to use my punch board and I'm lining up the top portion of my library card along the scoring guide and I'm going to also line up the bottom of my punch and run my bone folder up to get a good score line. As you can see there it's a little crooked so I'm going to go ahead and just fix it up lining up the top and the bottom of the punch to get a flap size. I decided this was a little too difficult for me just because I couldn't see it. I like to see something but if that's all you have this definitely works for all four flaps. The first one that I made I did use the envelope punch board. Flip it over, line it up again, and get the other flap. You're going to do that for all four of the flaps. The second way that you can create your little flaps is by using a regular scoreboard and I found this to be much easier. The base of the punch is about 3 8ths of an inch so I'm just going to take 3 8ths of an inch from that right side and go ahead and score that. Flip it over. Now this is the short end so I've got to fix that score line that was crooked because I couldn't see what I was doing on the punch board. In order to put this together you need to cut the flaps off from the long side so that would be the back side of the pocket card and I'm just using Tim Holtz long bladed shears. These are nine and a half inch titanium shears and then I'm going to go ahead and burnish the remaining short flaps. Now you can choose to glue these to the inside or around the back which is what I'm going to do which would be a traditional library pocket card. I'm bringing back my punch because I'm going to put a little thumb hole in the top of the library pocket card and then I'm going to round off the top of the corners because I think it looks prettier. Once you add your adhesive again you can fold it all the way around to the back and apply adhesive to the back side or you can apply adhesive and attach it to the inside of your pocket. Whichever way, no rules here, you can do whatever you like and then just decorate. Here's an example of a larger pocket that I went ahead and decorated for a gift. Paper bows are a fun way to use your envelope punch. Now this is an eight inch by one inch strip of cardstock so I'm making two punches to the center so at the four inch mark both sides and now I'm also going to make punches at one and a half inches. I need to leave just a little bit of tail and I probably could have left a little bit more but it is what it is. I left one and a half inches and I'm going to flip it over and one and a half inches. Now if you really want to make it fancy we're going to go ahead and put it on its edge and go ahead and cut the tail portion as well. I'm just lining that up to the center as best I can and doing another punch and this is what you should look like at this point. I'm going to use a bone folder and kind of give my bow just a little bit of a crease as soon as I can get a hold of it. It doesn't take much. The first time I did this I actually split my cardstock so you want to be a little careful but I did want to give it a nice little bend. I find liquid glue to be the proper adhesive for this but again you do you. I'm using Barely Arts precision craft glue here because I only need a small amount and I'm putting it towards the center of that bow. Now I am lining up the edges of the bow so that everything lines up just giving it a little pinch till it adheres and then I'm going to fold the tail back towards where we just came. All right fold that down and I'm going to go ahead and add some glue just above the little center portion, fold my bow over so that my edges meet, give it a little pinch till it grabs and then fold my tail back to the other side. Now I got both tails there. Oh dear. Okay we'll get them apart eventually. Okay there we go. Nope I didn't hold it long enough. Boy oh boy. Okay so um it is pretty cold for us here in Florida right now so heaven only knows what's going on in my house. It's probably about 62 degrees in the house right now. Now I have opted to also glue down my tails and I'm just adding the tiniest drop of glue underneath the tail towards the center and giving that a pinch as well. To finish off the center of my bow I just have a small scrap about an eighth of an inch in width and I didn't bother to measure the length because we're just going to I'm just going to fold it around the center adding glue as needed, fold it all the way around and then we're going to go ahead and cut off the remaining portion of the tail. So I do use glue in three places because I really want it to hold and there I've snipped off that and it turns out so cute. Really nothing went to waste because I created a card out of all of those little punch outs, finished with a bow and a sentiment. Perfect. Let's make boxes. I am using the Crafty Owl Box Buster website. It is free to use. I'll leave the link down below. You can change it from millimeters to inches. I need a three inch box for the depth by a three inch box for the width and by one and three quarters inches for my height. So you're simply going to enter all of your data and press calculate and like magic it's going to let you know what paper size you need and where you need to do your punches and your score lines. To make my box I need to first cut my cardstock so I'm getting out my Fiskars trimmer and I'm cutting my square paper to seven and five eighths inches by seven and five eighths inches. With my paper cut I'm being bringing back the envelope punch board and I have lined up one edge to two and a half inches and punched and I'm going to go ahead and add my score line. Then I have a second punch. This is at five inches. Punch and hit the score line. Now what's different here is that you have to rotate it all the way around to the opposite side and punch at two and a half, score, punch at five, and score. Now you're not going to use your measurements anymore. On the sides that you have not punched you're going to use your score guide and you're going to line the score guide up directly over the first score line. Punch and then score. Now you'll see this is pretty heavy cardstock because I intended to be a box holding something heavy so and then I'm lining up the score guide again to the next line. I'm going to punch and score and then I kind of lose track of where I'm at and I have to go all the way around but I'm stopping here but I've already punched that. Okay so on the opposite side I'm going to line it up to the score line. Punch and score and again I'm going to line up that last score line to the scoring guide and punch and score. The next part is simple. Simply follow your score lines and burnish with a bone folder or your fingers. All lines need to be burnished. Moving on to create the flaps for our box. Choose any corner and point the arrow towards your stomach then cut up from the arrow to the second burnished line. Flip it all the way around so that they are going to be across from one another and cut the flaps again for that second side. Although this is not entirely necessary I do choose to cut a small wedge from each flap. That way when the flaps are pushed into the box they fold flat and nicely against one another. If they're not cut in then they tend to be a little bulkier. All righty it's time to put our box together and you need to choose an adhesive. I tend to like a tape runner or double stick tape as opposed to liquid glue because I have to hold the liquid glue until it sets for the box. So that's really all there is to it. In terms of putting the box together. So I'm going to fold my flaps in and attach my tape runner. I'm going to put a pretty good amount of adhesive on here because I really want it to hold. Honestly what I'm putting inside this box is a little heavy for the box so I want to make sure that it's got good adhesion. Then I just go ahead and pull the sides up and attach the sides of the box. Pretty easy peasy all in all. And I'm going to do the same thing for the other side. Fold my flaps in, add my adhesive, and adhere the flaps to the inside of the box. You can seal the box closed with additional tape runner or just close it up with some ribbon or string. There you go. Six different ways to use your envelope punch board from bows to boxes and everything in between. Here's some other videos you can check out that I've picked out just for you. Until next time, I'll see you real soon.