Yes the "dots" in the corner look like they are from paper piercing. SU has a mat pack for about $10 that has a template and 2 mats in it. It doesn't have the paper piercer in it though. You have to buy that too. I got mine at our lss, but I'm sure SU has one too. As far as other paper piercing templates go, if you put paper piercing templates in a search engine, you should be able to find a lot of different ones. I got one that's made from Ornare that I really like. It's really easy to do and makes your cards look just a little extra special, IMO.
There's a tutorial about how to do different stitches here on SCS too.
Tutorials at Splitcoaststampers