EK Success Photo Labels Punch Border Tutorial

(Sorry for the super long post title, but it seemed appropriate).

Even since CHA, I have been eagerly been awaiting the opportunity to purchase several of the new EK Success Slimline punches. Fortunately, when I went to my local JoAnn's on Thursday, I was delighted to find a bunch of the new punches had finally come out.

I picked up a few of the ones I couldn't live without and got my craft on. I have a couple of future posts planned around some nifty uses for them.. but for today, my favorite of these new ones has to be the Photo Label punch. It is a large size slimline punch that will punch out three individual labels at once. I believe the individual label sizes are large (2.25"L x 1"H)  medium (1 3/4"L x 7/16"H) small (1"L x 7/16"H). 

The one downside of the punch is that I like my labels to have a slight border around the edge. I tried inking the edges, but apparently, my shaking hands just aren't cut out to do that without causing smudges. Ditto for trying to turn them into a frame and using one on top of another. I also dug through my stash of label stamps, but found nothing that would fit the dimensions of my punched labels.

So, time to do this the hard way by making a border for the label by matting it on cardstock (you could use any paper, really).

You are going to need the photo labels punch, some sharp detail scissors (here I used my Cutterbees), and some hole punches. For the large label, a 1/4 inch hole punch, and for the smaller labels, a 1/16 inch hole punch (these are Fiskars). You will also need some paper.

Go ahead and punch out some labels. Here I used white and kraft as my base.

Once you've got the desired amount of labels punched, adhere them to your base cardstock.

I like to trim my paper down a bit once I've got the label adhered. Once you've got your pieces ready, grab your hole punches.

The easiest way to deal with the little corner indents is to use your hole punch to neatly trim the cardstock to the desired edge width. Use the 1/4 inch punch on the big label, and the 1/16 punch on the smaller labels.

(You could also stop right here and with a few less cuts, make yourself some faux tickets, if you wanted.)

I like to punch all the holes first, that way if I mess up, I can reposition the label on the cardstock. Once you've got all the corners done, trim the rest of the cardstock to the desired border width.

Once you've got everything trimmed to size you should have a nice little stack of labels and scraps. Feel free to recycle your scraps (but definitely hang on to your labels).

If you like, take a moment to admire your pretty new labels. You could even go on to mat the label again, either with the same paper as the main label, or another contrasting color. Lots of possibilities.

Fun right? And here's a little sample of some labels I placed on a scrapbook page I'm working on. Ooooh. Good stuff.

Hope you liked my little tutorial.

Have a great weekend and happy crafting!