Illustration Board

If there is one thing I really love in my studio... it is a sheet of illustration board. I always buy a sheet when I have a 40% or 50% off coupon to the local craft store when there is nothing else to buy. When I was newly engaged to my husband we took a class together at our local college... "Theater set design" A must have class when you live in Fresno... *snort* We had to construct a small scale representation of what we would like to build life size on the stage.... We were shown how to construct such a miniature set using illustration board. I've been hooked ever since-- and that was over 30 years ago.
Here is the latest creation I've made using illustration board. A three tiered miniature table. I didn't make a precise pattern, I just kind of winged it~ You can see how I used the spindle legs I made with skewers and paper that I shared in the previous post. I made the detailed cut work using a paper punch. On the very last punch--- the paper punch broke. I guess that is a good thing since I tend to like things to match a little bit to much. I cut and glued together 4 pieces of card stock to create each side of the detailed work on this little table. Since this is going in a Barbie house for a three year old--- I stabilized the card stock piece with a small piece of illustration board. I saved the little flowers that were left over from the paper punch and created little daisies...I used pins for the stems of each daisy. I painted the tops of the pins yellow, once dried, I pushed them through the paper flowers. I used wire cutters to cut the sharp end off each pin and then wrapped the flowers stem with floral tape. My grandaughter loves to fuss with little things, so this bucket of flowers is going to be fun for her to dump out and rearrange over and over again.

Illustration board, if you've never tried using it, is very similar to chip board. The difference is that illustration board has a usable paper finish to both sides, ready to directly paint on. I use a sharp blade and a ruler to do most of the cuts... although I have used a paper cutter too. I've been using wood glue to glue the illustration board into these little mini's... I've been sanding the pieces smooth and wood glue is made to be sanded. For added strength you can even run a straight pin through the boards and glue them together as well.

I've got a few more sheets of illustration board waiting patiently to be used... and a few more ideas swirling around in my head~