The other day I showed you some drink labels for a party I’d made using an easel card layout.  This is another card technique that is really quite simple – but usually gets a ‘wow’ from the person who opens it up.  Who doesn’t love minimum effort and maximum wow?!?

Easel cards are really versatile – labels, place settings, cards, grown up, kids … anything really! I’ve found that kids particularly love these because they have to figure out how they work.   It can also be a nice way to display a photo on your desk or kitchen bench.

Today I want to show you how to make the card.  First though, some pictures!  Here’s an example of a kids one from the front:

And as an ‘easel’:

And some “grown up” butterfly ones:

I think this last one is the first card I ever made after going to a class run by the very talented Sally Ann Williams (check out Sally’s blog at http://www.sallycancraft.com)

[And yes, I’m still sorting through my old photos!!!]

Making the cards

To make these cards you need 2 pieces of card stock.  I like to use these dimensions: Piece 1 – 21 x 11 cm and Piece 2 – 11 x 11cm.  Why these dimensions?  Well, an A4 piece of card stock is 21cm along the short side, so it’s easy to just cut at 11cm to make your first piece.

Step 1 – score Piece 1 across the short edge at 5cm and 10cm in from the long edge.

Step 2 – fold the 10cm score line over as a valley fold.  Then fold the 5cm score line as a mountain fold (ie, back on itself)

Step 3 – decorate Piece 2 (11cm square) however you like.  This will be the front of your card.  I’ve found it can be quite effective to leave your square plain and actually decorate a separate 10.5 x 10.5cm piece of card stock and layer that onto the front of the card. This gives you a nice layered/framed effect.  In the two butterfly cards I’ve shown you above I’ve done two layers – a 10cm x 10cm white piece and a 10.5 x 10.5cm mat.

Step 4 – put some glue onto the ‘folded back’ section.  This is where you will stick the front of the card.  I’d recommend using Snail Adhesive from Stampin’ Up!.  I’ve tried other glues from Officeworks and $2 shops but in my experience they are not strong enough for an easel card and lose their stick after a few days.

Step 5 – stick on your card front!  This picture gives you the idea of how the card is stuck together:

Step 6 – you need to add something to the base of your card to make the ‘easel’, ie, to prop the front of the card on so it will stand upright. You want a finished card that works like this:

What can you use to prop up the card?  It can be anything that is thick enough for the front layer to rest on and stay upright.  This could be a button, a piece of thick ribbon, or a punched shape raised on dimensionals as I’ve used here.  (Dimensionals are double sided sticky foam dots sold by Stampin’ Up! which add height to embellishments on your projects).

Here is an example of how I’ve used punches and dimensionals to make a “prop” for the easel card:

I’ve cut 3 large oval punches in brown card stock and stuck them to the card base.  I’ve then stamped and punched a white ‘For you’ image and used dimensionals to stick it in the middle of the punched ovals to give some height to prop up the easel card.

You can also use plain ribbon if it is thick enough, like this:

Or a button, like this:

Note: if you use a button the card won’t sit quite as nicely when the front is closed.

Hopefully that all made sense – feel free to leave me a comment if you’d like me to explain anything!

[BTW: The red card in the pictures is one I made while I was writing this post so I could take photos and demonstrate the steps.  I broke my own rules and stuck the square piece on before I decorated it, so I could show you another way to prop the card up.   I now have to figure out how to decorate the front!)

Thanks for reading – I hope you enjoy making your own easel card.  Or if you have tips on how I can make mine differently I’d love for you to share them!

Caro x