- Some A4 pieces of chipboard (at least 4 but I'd have extra in case something goes wrong!): it doesn't have to be that heavy weight but it should be robust enough to stand up when slotted together with the other pieces of the stand
- White A4 card (8+ depending on how many sheets of chipboard you require): I used a really nice white textured cardstock from Paper Mill that's quite strong and gives a nice finish
- 2 plastic/wooden 30cm dowels: the best for me were actually wedding cake dowels (6mm x 30cm dowels from Amazon.co.uk) because they went well with the patterned paper that I used on the panels
- Patterned paper, card and embellishments for decorating!
I first covered all my chipboard on both sides with the white A4 card to give it a smooth finish. To make the back panel of the display I cut two 10.5cm slits at each end of the chipboard, about 1cm in from the side using a craft knife. You can cut from top to bottom or bottom to top but REMEMBER: whatever direction you do on the back you have to do the opposite on the sides so that the panels slot together nicely (see below).
To make the side panels, I made my 'stairs' 9.8cm wide by 7cm high (about 3 equal sized stairs on a sheet of A4). Mark the tops of the stairs at 7cm and 14cm (for the middle stair). You can make the stairs whatever size you want, or add more if you need more space! After I had cut out the 'stairs' I made similar slits as to on the back panel (1cm in and 10.5cm long) on the tall stair and 1cm in/3.5cm long slits on the low stair. Another thing you need to do on these panels is make notches for your dowels to sit in to form your earring hanging bars. The size you make these will depend on the size of your bars, but I made 1cm x 1cm indentations for my 6mm dowels to sit in. For the lowest 'stair', I decided to put in a shelf that I could rest smaller earrings or necklaces on, so I cut a 7.8cm x 1cm slot in these bottom 'stairs'. I then cut pieces of A4 chipboard and card to 7.8cm wide to make the shelf to slot in.
The front panel is made in a similar way to the back panel: just cut yourself pieces of chipboard and card to the same height as your lowest 'stair' (7cm in my case) and cut slits in both ends (1cm in/3.5cm long for mine).
Next comes the fun part: decorating! For this I used my favorite crafting card (Kraft card) and some 12 x 12cm floral patterned paper from my stash. I also added the logo that I designed for mine and my mum's craft business, a good way to get some advertising in without having signs dotted about your display table.
Make sure to decorate both sides of your side panels: I found that the stand looks a little bare if you only decorate the back on the inside surface! I'd also go for reasonably light colours of paper as well since the last thing you want is your stand overpowering the jewellery it's meant to be displaying! Once you have decorated all your panels, you should be able to assemble your completed stand into something that looks like this...
Emma x
