Product Reviews: We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board

Being an avid card maker who never has the right sized envelopes to fit my cards, I was intrigued when I saw this Envelope Punch Board from We R Memory Keepers.  I admit that while I do have the Martha Stewart scoring board, which comes with an envelope-making attachment, the attachment always looked intimidating and math-ish, so I never gave it a whirl.  I hoped that this envelope-making board would be easy to use and I am happy to report that it is!

Here's the board with the 6x6 piece of paper I decided to make my envelope with:

The nice thing about this board is that it has a bunch of sizes listed on it so you can see exactly what size of paper you'll need to make which size of envelope.  The instructions are also written right on the machine, which was very convenient.

Here's the paper after I'd punched the sides and scored it according to the directions.  It was super fast and easy to do.

The last step was to fold my envelope and glue down the sides.  NOTE: while you can fold scored lines either way (toward you or away from you), if you're using a double-sided piece of patterned paper and you want a certain pattern to be on the outside of your envelope, be sure to put that side facing down.  Whichever side is facing up will be the inside of the envelope if you're following the indentations of the scored lines.  I didn't realize that and had to fold my lines opposite of how I scored them.  Not a big deal, but something I should've noticed sooner in the process.

Here's my envelope after I glued it together. There weren't any rules on how to glue it (which flap goes down first, etc.), so just do it whichever way you think looks best.  I also folded down the little rounded tab that was poking up in the middle to give the envelope a more angular look.

Last but not least, I inked around the outside of my envelope just to give the edges a little more definition.

After using the envelope punch board, I must give it two thumbs up.  I hate math and really appreciated how all the dimensions were written right on the board.  The scoring tool also stores inside the board, which is another handy feature.  It also has two punches in one: the first makes rounded indentations and the other side of the punch makes rounded corners.  Pretty genius to have one punch doing double-duty depending on which side you stick your paper in.  Another nice fact is that the punch doesn't require superhuman strength to press down and the whole thing seems sturdy enough.  I can see this being a very useful tool and for under $20, you can't beat the price.

Thinking of buying the envelope punch board for yourself?  Here's a YouTube video of this cool tool in action to help you make the final decision.  It really is as easy as it looks!