Tutorial: Branching Boxes with Sentiments

Good morning! I hope you had a terrific weekend! Today's tutorial is 2 for 1 and so fun and so easy! I wish I'd had a chance to share this idea with you at the release, but I suppose it's just as good to keep the good ideas coming! ;) I'm sure you've all seen and probably tried to make or recreate the beautiful cards that are so popular where you draw with a pen and ruler or stamp a box to house your main image that includes a sentiment in the border, it is such a great look! Let me show you how easy it is to with the both the large AND small frames from "Branching Out", this might become your favorite thing to do with this set!
Here is a single layer CAS I made from Pure Luxury which also uses a sentiment from "Garden Silhouettes" and the current StampTV Kit "Springtime Silhouettes". I am just lovin' this branch silhouette with the butterfly!

First you'll line up your frame onto your large acrylic block, this is the 6"x6" one Gina sells and the one I use for stamping all the large stamps from my frame sets. Centered in between the grid lines or along the grid line, whichever way you prefer, it's a snap to stamp it precisely on your cardbase. Next, you'll place your greeting where you want it to be above the border, and then ink around it, using a pad or marker. (You can make it a little tighter than I've done here so it comes right up to the edge of your sentiment if you wish, but then you have less wiggle room when adding he greeting later.

Remove your greeting, huff on the stamp to re-moisten the ink and stamp onto your pre-scored cardbase. The score along the middle is another guideline for you to look at to make sure your lines on your block are parallel. TIP: Don't fold the score until after you're done stamping and sponging, this keeps the card from "popping up" on you.

Now go back in with your greeting, making sure you've lined up your greeting with the line on the block and then center it over the line on the frame and you'll be good! Doesn't that look purty??

Now for the sponged sky you asked for that I made for my birdies! Although I really like the look of sponging over a cloud stencil or scallop punch, I typically just sponge without and try to make the color roll across the card in waves so your eye goes up and down. Here I've masked off the edges with sticky notes and sponged in Vivid Butterscotch. Imagine smoke moving and the way it dissipates, getting lighter out toward the edges and darker in the middle.

Now I've added in some pink, keeping some areas white, sponging into new areas so that only pink shows, and over the orange in some areas to create this new fiery color. That's' it, remove the stickies and you're ready to add some stamping and embellishments.

Here is the same card again, portrait style, like the one I shared on our inspiration hop the previous week, this works for me both ways! I clipped a part of a rhinestones flourish that would curve around my greeting for more interest, laying it over my card before pulling off the plastic and adhering to make sure it went where I wanted. I tilted the butterfly to make sure it would go just outside the frame.

Was that an easy card or what? One layer, wowee! See how nice it is to be able to customize exactly where you want your greetings to be and just how long or short the space is? For example, you could also flip the stamp so the vine is on the opposite side or even the top and make a space for a shorter greeting, etc.

Tomorrow I will share a card I made the same way but with the small square frame from "Branching Out". Hope this was helpful! Not just for scenes either of course, you can choose to isolate popped up single or several images that will pop off a white, neutral or colored background in a box like this! This is gonna be a new go to layout for me, for sure! :)