Thursday, March 11, 2010

Easter Easel Card

  by Kris Hankins

I have always been a creative person. I like doing almost anything where I can use my hands. My first and foremost love is rubber stamping. My artful journey started over 20 years ago when my brother gave me my first rubber stamp. I went on to own a small collection of stamps and dabbled with them off and on for a few years. Ten years ago, I unexpectedly (but happily) came across a small stamp store. The moment I entered the store and saw wall to wall rubber stamps I knew I was hooked. The creative side of me was in total awe. I was in heaven. I quickly found out how much the industry had advanced. There were so many new possibilities with the products that were available. Over the past 10 years I have come to call myself a mixed media artist. I have grown to love altered art – altered books, collage work, home décor items, atc’s, etc. I have also had an ongoing interest in sewing home décor pieces, quilting, drawing, architecture, wood working, miniature doll houses, and painting. Fortunately, I’ve met many good friends and artists via online art groups. I’ve learned so much from all of them. In recent years I have had the pleasure of participating on a few design teams and have had my art published. The beauty of nature is my biggest inspiration when it comes to my art. I look forward to sharing my art with all of you, starting with this, my first piece for the FranticStamper Design Team.

Recently, easel cards have become very popular. Many of you have probably already experimented and made an easel card. I wanted to share a festive Easter easel card that can be left sitting out all season.

Easter Easel

Materials:

Instructions

  • Here is a basic template for making an easel card.
  • Start by cutting two pieces from a sheet of kraft cardstock – (1) 8” x 4” and (1) 4” x 4”.



  • Use your Scor-It to create two valley folds in the larger piece of cardstock. One fold at 2” and one at 4” mark. Fold and crease well.


  • This is what your base piece should look like after making the folds. The card front (4” x 4” piece) will be attached to the 2” folded end segment later (center of picture).


  • To make the (4” x 4”) card front with the Easter carrot –

    • Cut a 3.75” x 3.75” piece of Bo Bunny dotted cardstock (Wasabi) for layering.
    • Cut a 3.75” x 2.5” piece of Bo Bunny dotted cardstock (Wasabi) for layering with sentiment.
    • Cut a 3.5” x 3.5” piece of cream cardstock for the sky.
    • Cut (2) 3.5” widths of textured Bazzill cardstock (pinecone brown) for the “dirt”.
    • Cut a 5” x 4” piece of textured Bazzill cardstock (apricot) for the carrot.


  • From a scrap of printer paper, cut a small curved shape that resembles the shape of a cloud. Use this as a mask to make clouds in the sky. Starting near the top, hold the paper mask down and chalk the edge of the mask stroking downward. I use a cotton makeup puff to apply the chalk. Do this on the top half of the cream colored background. Also, chalk the edges of the cardstock.



  • Take the (4” x 5”) Bazzill apricot cardstock and turn over. Sketch the shape of a fat carrot. Make it approximately 4” tall. Tear from the backside (following your sketched line) tearing the paper away from you. This will give the front of the carrot a nice torn edge.

  • Turn the carrot over to the textured side. Using a piece of scrap printer paper as a mask, laying it on the carrot, chalk some lines to create lines like on a real carrot.



  • Add a green eyelet to the top of your carrot. Take a few strands of green raffia and attach through eyelet. Cut short to resemble the bushy greens of a carrot.



  • Take the 3.5” widths of Bazzill pinecone brown cardstock and tear pieces to use as layers of dirt. Start with the back piece and work your way to the front. Tear paper toward you to create a nice torn edge. Glue the layers to the cream cardstock, excluding the last (bottom) layer. You will glue this last piece after you have attached your carrot.

  • Attach the cream cardstock (with “dirt” attached) to the green dotted layer. Attach this to the 4” x 4” piece of kraft cardstock.

  • Glue the carrot to the “dirt” so that the tip of it will hide under the last torn layer of brown cardstock that you have not yet attached. Glue down the last piece of “dirt”.

  • You can now attach this completed 4” x 4” stack to the easel portion of the card base.



  • For the sentiment portion of the card, tear one more narrow layer of “dirt” (3.75” wide) and attach to lower edge of the (3.75” x 2.5”) piece of Bo Bunny dotted cardstock.

  • Stamp “Easter Wishes” sentiment from the Stampendous “Easter greetings” stamp set on a scrap of cream cardstock using Memento Ink (Bamboo Leaves). Chalk the edges of this piece using the same blue chalks as used for the clouds.



  • Attach the stamped sentiment to the Bo Bunny dotted cardstock/dirt layer.

  • From the same Stampendous stamp set, stamp some egg images on the scrap pieces of Easter colored cardstock. Cut out the oval eggs. Attach the eggs around the sentiment using small 3D pop dots.

  • Attach this completed sentiment piece to the front portion of the card base using large 3D pop dots.

  • Make sure you elevate this portion of the card so that when you want your easel card to stand up, it has a ridge to hold the easel upright.

  • This is what your Easter easel card should look like from the side when assembled and displayed.




Have fun making your Easter Carrot easel card. Until my next turn, happy crafting!

Kris

5 comments:

  1. I love the torn elements! That is something I seldom think to do... I am a straight-edges and symmetric kind of person by nature, so it helps me to be jolted out of that box sometimes!

    ReplyDelete
  2. How stinkin sweet is this!!??!!??

    Love it and thanks for the instructions. Haven't made an easel card yet, but now I think I will.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love easel cards, but don't think to make them often. Need to remember that style more. I love this card it is just adorable! Thanks for the inspiration!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great post. This Display easels are really nice. Thanks for sharing this. I really love it.

    ReplyDelete