My sister and her husband are going to France this summer and will be touring Paris and Normandy on a river cruise! I decided to make her a birthday keepsake for their upcoming trip. The Fancy Frames cartridge has an easel that reminds me of the Eiffel Tower so I cut out the pieces at 9 inches using black cardstock. After learning that one layer of 12 x 12 black cardstock wasn’t going to support my dimensional “post card” without bending at the easel’s legs and falling over, I had to get creative using my thicker 8.5 x 11 inch black cardstock and Cricut’s Design Studio (DS). Since this is much smaller cardstock and the easel contains two panels in its image, I used DS to hide the contour lines on panel 1 so that just panel 2 would cut. I repeated this process on a second set of panels but now hid the lines on panel 2 so that just panel 1 would cut. This now gave me one of each panel using two sheets of 8.5 x 11 cardstock. It was necessary to go through this process for each panel because even though they look the same, their tabs hook in opposite directions when assembled. Because of my first mishap with the easel buckling under the weight of the embellished post card, I decided to cut the panels out twice so that I could glue two layers of cardstock together for more strength.
The third panel image for this easel was much simpler. I didn’t have to hide any lines since the panel and the trim piece fit on one sheet of 8.5 x 11 cardstock. I wanted the panel and trim piece to cut out twice so I placed two sets on the DS mat and added a sheet of cardstock to each end of my 12 x 24 cutting mat. Remember to line up your paper on your cutting mat to mirror how it looks in Design Studio so that it cuts out correctly. To cut from Design Studio, you click on the scissors icon.
The easel experience taught me a few things. On my first attempt, I thought I would be helping myself by gluing parts of the easel panels together at the tabs. I even glued the trim piece on as well. This may be fine for thicker layers of cardstock but for just one layer I think it added to the buckling because the easel’s feet that hook together couldn’t splay out – they were now glued together and couldn’t distribute the weight. This is a personal opinion and I do admit that my postcard was much too heavy for one layer of cardstock.
So as previously mentioned, on my second attempt I chose the thicker 8.5 x 11 sheets, cut every piece twice, glued the two layers together, and then assembled the easel like a puzzle. I opted not to adhere any tabs or feet together. The entire easel can be disassembled for storage and put together again when desired. I like this option much better and I can happily say that the two layers of cardstock on each panel did the trick. I also learned that you don’t have to glue the tabs to keep this thing together. The tabs hook nicely and can easily support the weight of an embellished card or other paper artwork.
So now that the easel part is over, let’s move on to the little postcard, artwork, or whatchamacallit! 🙂 It’s not a card in the greeting card sense. It’s a 4.5 x 6 piece of black cardstock with patterned papers adhered on top, and then embellished with paper flowers, chipboard (this added to the weight :)), and a 4 inch oval stamped with an Eiffel Tower image I found at Michael’s.
Supplies for the postcard:
- Black cardstock
- DCWV’s “The Bella Armoire Strack” – sheet of glossy black patterned paper; sheet of scripted cream paper for the oval
- American Craft’s Dear Lizzy 5th & Frolic line: paper flowers with pearl bead centers; printed chipboard shapes (polaroid, arrow); Remarks Sticker Book – Accent & Phrase Stickers (floral heart); floral paper with polka dotted strip
- StazOn Ink – Jet Black
- Inkadinkado La Tour Eiffel stamp
- 4 inch Oval – Fancy Frames cartridge
Southern Cricut Lady 