You Can do Yudu: Easy Platens- Make your own!

I got this idea from a post I read sometime in the past, a gal used corrugated plastic signboard for her platens. Sometimes when you have more ideas than money, as we often do around here, you use what you have. I had a few pieces of heavy cardboard that I use as backing on my easel when airbrushing, it’s the same double ply cardboard that our YUDUs came packed in. I needed several platens for an upcoming project and I been house bound for the last 10 days with the swine flu, so I decided to use the cardboard. We used it to print on some cardstock and it worked nicely. I don’t expect these to last forever but they work in a pinch.
As you can see in the 1st pic below I traced an outline of the YUDU platen, but so far I have only cut it to length. I cut the holes a bit smaller and pushed them down the platen pegs so as to make tight fit. Also you need to notch the top where the screen holder/frame hinges are.

The 2nd pic shows how we printed card stock. Rather than use adhesive on cardboard (my guess is that some of the cardboard would come up with the card stock or some of the cardstock would stay stuck to the cardboard), I used blue painters tape to line up the stock where it needed to be and taped the corners down.