Perfect Corners Everytime!

Sometimes my perfectionist nature creeps into scrapbooking and I find myself wanting to "fix" something. Actually, I probably fight with this tendency more than I'd like to admit, I am sure this has influenced my scrapbook style. Well I love all the decorative punches on the market; I own quite a few. The last couple I purchased were from Martha Stewart. I used her Doily border punch in my "LOVE" layout below.

I really like to use border punches on the outside of a square, but I always want my corners to meet perfectly! With the two Martha Stewart punches I bought, I just couldn't get a really clean look even with practice. So I decided on an alternative which is what I want to share here. In my "LOVE" layout I actually used the Doily border punch on card stock strips, created mitered corners, and affixed these behind by patterned paper square. I want to show you how I did the miter with the paper strips.
To explain how I did this I am going to have to introduce one of my favorite tools. Yes, this is a quilter's ruler. I use it all the time. I am always looking for an easy way to accomplish a task and with this tool I can attach a pic to card stock and cut a clean 1/8" border around the pic without measuring anything. I just use the quilting lines, all set 1/8 or 1/4 of an inch apart.

The other cool feature on this ruler is the angles. The ruler has two lines with mark a 45 degree angle which is what we need to create a mitered corner!


To create a perfect corner with a perfect 90 degree angle we start with two strips of paper punched with our border punch. We then need to decide on a spot in the design for the corner to match up. Once we have decided on a match up point we cut our strip at a 45 degree angle making sure we end our cut at our match up point. the quilter's ruler makes this easy because all we do is line up the straight edge of our punched strip with the 45 degree angle painted on the ruler and cut. Here is a closer look at those angles painted on the ruler.

When we cut our two strips, each strip with have a 45 degree angle cut, and the cuts will mirror each other. When the corners are matched up, you will have something like this. In this picture I have matched up the corners of the Martha Stewart Arch Lattice border punch. Both of these punches give such pretty results!