Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight Easel Challenge

Hi all, no posts for a week and then hey ho, three in one day! On a roll here, lol

This is my current DT card for the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge blog. Every other week they have a general challenge and then alternate weeks it’s a spotlight challenge. This week the spotlight is easel cards.

No stamping involved here, just some really rather gorgeous Kanban card and a topper from them. In my case the challenge was in getting the easel to not break apart but allow enough of the shape to remain so it’s obvious what it is.

I did take a couple of pics along the way as the CCM blog is aimed at the newer crafter, so if any of you have not tried this sort of shaped easel yet, hopefully you can now dive in.

Firstly I started with a square of card sligthly larger than my finished design was going to be and in this case I used one of the gorgeous Go Kreate dies called pointy frame, I think! lol I forget now.

I placed my die just slightly over the edge of the card so that it would not cut two complete frame shapes with no join, but also not so far that it would leave less of a shape to decorate. What I didn’t want was a gorgeous shape with a squared off bit. My first attempt was a disaster and I now have two nice spare frame shapes for a later design!

After it has been through the big shot and the die removed it looks like this, and as you can see there is very little holding it all together.

The next stage is to fold on side in on itself, so there is a place to support the main front part of the card and another area to decorate which will become the base of the easel, like thisAfter that comes the fun part of decorating it. I used the same die to cut  a lovely sheet of Kanban card into two separate pieces and placed one on the bottom and the second one I stuck to the half piece folded over.

You need to place something on the bottom on a foam pad or maybe a flower or largish gem, something that will sit proud of the card base and allow the top of the easel to sit against it and not slide flat.

Voila

Before I was finished I tipped the whole thing over and using the smaller die I cut out a sheet of paper to stick to the underside so that there would be somewhere to write a message on like so – notice the two hinges at the top. I put them on to strengthen that part of the card that would get the most wear as the join was quite thin, unlike a normal card with a full spine.

The top was decorated thus

I chose this particular card both for colour and design as this spotlight follows on from our Photo Inspiration Challenge of last week and I chose the blue to complement the blue colours, and the swans if you look closely form a heart with their necks, plus swans mate for life, so clearly there is a form of love there too.

I hope that anyone who has not yet made an easel card, and particularly a shaped one will now feel armed with the knowledge to give it a go, and for all you seasoned crafters out there, well we all had to start somewhere! So if you are feeling inspired why not come on over and join us with an easel card of your own. I do believe Vix has a small candy for the winner, so well worth an entry. There are lots more examples on the blog too to hopefully give you some inspiration.

New cardmaker or seasoned veteran, all are welcome at CCM.

If you haven’t entered last week’s photo inspiration challenge, there is still time to do so as it runs for another week and we would love to see you there.

Hugs