Tutorial - Easel Card

I have been seeing lots of wonderful easel cards around lately so thought I would give one a go myself. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they are actually very easy to make and look fabulous, plus you can get as creative as you like with punches, shape cutters and die cuts for a variety of looks.

Instructions:

1. Start with an A5 card blank. Score and fold it in half as you would if you were making a normal card. Score and fold the front half in half again as shown below.

2. Cut another A5 card blank in half. This piece will form the front of the card and will be attached to the piece you folded in the previous step. You will attach it as shown below, after you have decorated it.

3. For my card I used my nestabilities to cut a large scalloped oval from patterned paper and a slightly smaller plain oval from a piece of white cardstock that I had embossed through the cuttlebug. (note: always emboss your cardstock before measuring and cutting to size as the process of embossing shrinks the cardstock slightly). I also printed a small greeting on white cardstock and cut it out with a nestability oval cutter, along with a slightly larger oval to mat the greeting.

4. Measure and cut two pieces of patterned paper that are about 1/4" smaller than your card blanks. Trim all the corners with a corner rounder for effect, and ink all the pieces of paper and cardstock if desired. Adhere one of the patterned papers to the inside of your card blank and the other to the separate piece of cardstock as shown below.

5. Mat the small oval greeting with the oval patterned paper. Use "pop dots" or foam tape to adhere the greeting to the inside of the card, centred, about 1/4" up from the edge of the patterned paper. This little greeting will hold your card open when it is being displayed.

 

6. Cut out your coloured roses ignoring the extra leaves that are not attached to the main picture. These can be glued on separately with a few pen lines added to keep them as part of the overall design (see picture below).

I added a strip of lace horizontally across the card, then layered the ovals and finally the roses. I used foam tape between the card and the ovals and also between the ovals and roses for extra dimension.

7. Add some self-adhesive pearls to the top corners of the front cover and to the bottom inside corners of the card. Glue or tape the front cover securely to the first part of the folded card. It will stand open for display but can still be closed for postage.

I hope you have the opportunity to make some of these easel cards yourself. Feel free to share a link with me too, I'd love to see what you come up with. Have fun!