Martha Stewart has a screw punch. I couldn’t resist when I went to Michaels and I saw it. It’s larger than my wooden screw punch has a rubberized grip and storage in the handle for tips. In a few tests it’s slips through paper smoothly and without issue. It looks like the tips from my wooden screw punch should fit right into it. The large tips look as though they will cut through binder board with no issue but the smallest tip isn’t long enough. However if it will take a standard tip from Talas then no worries. At $24.99 it’s a good price, especially if standard screw punch tips fit it. The punch comes in a cardboard box, covered in brown paper with a clear plastic window to the inside. It closes up with a baby blue elastic.

It seems that Martha Stewart has a whole line of scrap booking and paper working supplies that are only available in Michaels stores. The line is completely coordinated with the other parts and pieces in the line. What does this mean for the average bookbinder and art journaler? Lots of possibilities. It would make it easier to coordinate pages, layers of paints and inks with papers and embellishments. It also means a higher price point. Anything “Martha” does comes with an additional price tag. But I’ll point out that the screw punch I bought was only $24.99, comes with it’s own storage, works really well and comes with 3 standard tips; not a bad deal overall.

I did notice that a lot of the paper by the piece at Michaels had changed. It looked as thought they had changed vendors or something of that nature. I was not as impressed as I have been in the past. Also the large stacks of paper that they have offered in the past have changed as well. This looks as though this is a repackaging by the vendor as it’s the same brand of paper but packages are different. They now offer 10 packs of a single style of paper, which is good but the colors are VERY limited and some of the other shade and styles that used to be offered in the large stack of 100 sheets have changed too. For someone like me who will buy 6 packages of card stock at a time this doesn’t bode well. I stocked up this time but I’m afraid the next time I go in things will be again different.

I didn’t stop at AC Moore this time out but the last time I was in I noticed a change in the layout of the store as well as the product in the store. Where Michaels is headed toward the higher end of the money chain AC Moore seems headed into the value end of the pool. There is no issue with value per se until it affects the quality of the products. I like value but I don’t like shoddy tools or supplies. They make the job of the artist and craft person harder. Not to mention that it devalues our work. People think that if they can head into their local craft store and buy supplies on the cheap that they should be able to buy the work of an artist or crafts person more cheaply than ever before.

I’ll end my rant now.

*note: I tested my old screw punch tips in the Martha Stewart punch it’s a no go. BUt it’s pretty close so I imagine that It will be super easy for me to make a small chuck that fits inside the handle and fits around the tip. A little thin brass tubing and a dremel and I’ll have a chuck that will fit my old tips as well as those form Talas.