Sensational Sentiments...

 

Do you ever have it that you create a card and you get so caught up in the images, techniques, or embellishments that you get almost completely finished before you realize you forgot the sentiment?  Happens to me all the time.  :-) So today I'm focusing on the sentiments.  They make great focal points...after all, the sentiment is usually the reason you send the card in the first place, right?  

Papertrey Ink has so many great sentiments.  With the Think Big Favorites, Tag-its, and Fillable Frames collections (just to name a few!) there's a great variety of large and small images.  There are also lots of great fonts...from fun and funky to classy and elegant...and everything in between.  

And while all of these sentiments are great on their own, mixing and matching them with other sets opens a whole new world!  I decided it would be fun to mix and match sentiments from different sets to create some eye-catching focal points.  These are super fun to make...something fun to play around with when you have some free stamping time.  You could create a stash of them to keep on hand for when you need to create a quick card.  

I thought I'd share a few tips to keep in mind if you'd like to give this a whirl.  I'm going to show you step-by-step how I stamped one of the sentiments, then I'll give you a some pointers as I show you the others.  Let's get started!

I started off stamping a bunch of different things onto scrap paper.  Here's a shot of my experimenting.  I didn't worry about colors, I was thinking only about the composition and placement of images.

Now for some step-by-step.  I'm going to show you this Congrats word collage and how it all came together...

 

I started off with a bunch of Vintage Cream cardstock pieces.  I trimmed them to 4 1/4 x 3 1/2.  This is a great size...enough room for lots of stamping, and the perfect size to tack on a card later.  

Using one of the cardstock pieces, I first stamped the little line/star border from Ad Sense.  It's little details and accents like this that make the sentiment visually interesting.

Now I added a sentiment above and below.  "Well done!" is from Fly Away and "Fabulous" is from Say it With Style.  Using a clear block marked with a grid is essential for this type of stamping...it makes it so easy to get everything straight and lined up!  They have been out of stock at Papertrey for a long time, but you can find them HERE, HERE or HERE.  My favorite to use is the long 6" block...it stretches all the way across  my card front.

For the next step, I'm using the "sensational years" stamp from Big Birthday Wishes.  Always keep in mind that you can ink up just portions of your sentiments to customize them.  It really stretches the uses for your stamps!  Here I'm just inking up the "sensational" portion.  This stamp is large enough that I could just avoid inking the "years" portion if I was careful...if you're working with a smaller sentiment a piece of scotch tape over the portion you don't want to ink does the trick.  Just put it on before inking, then pull it off before stamping it onto your project.  One other thing to note is the placement...notice how I nestled it nice and close to "fabulous", allowing the "l" at the end to tuck around the "s".  I'll balance it out in a bit with my next word.

Now I'm going to balance it out by stamping "congrats" from Think Big Favorites #5.  The big "C" nicely fills in the area.  This is why you want to play around on scrap paper first...just to get a feel for the best placement of things before stamping on your good cardstock.  :-)

I'm happy with the way the sentiment looks, so now it's time to add some little embellishments to really make it special.  I'm using some stars from Banner Builder.

I'm going to finish it off with a couple more of those little star borders from Ad Sense, just to add some grounding.  This is the perfect example of how a grid block is a necessity...I can get them perfectly aligned.  

It was easy to then take my sentiment block and create a card.  I just added some patterned paper strips from my scrap box, a little twine and a diecut star and button.  

I created cards with all of the sentiment blocks I showed in the first photo of this post... just by adding few strips of paper, diecut borders, a little embellishment and voila!  A group of fun cards.  

 

Let me show you each one, along with a tip or two.  The sets used in each card are linked at the bottom of this post.

A mix of fonts keeps it interesting...mix up the size and the type of font.  The decorative elements from the Mat Stack Collections make great embellishments and act as a frame the sentiment.

Keep an eye out for places to tuck images.  The flourishes on this "It's Your Day" sentiment are a great place to perch a bird or nestle some flowers.  The "celebrate..." sentiment finishes it off.

Just another mix here using Mr. and Mrs from Big and Bold Wishes.  The banner images from Banner Builder make great accents as well.

And lastly, a thank you card.  I combined the small "just a Note"  with the large "thank you".  The combination of script and print fonts really work nicely together.  Also keep in mind that you can layer images like I did here with the ledger circle by using different colors of ink.  The circle and flowers create a nice balance. The "to" is part of a "to:, from:" stamp, I just masked off the portion I didn't want to use with a piece of scotch tape.

Whew...did you make it all the way to the end of this post?  Congrats to you if you did.  :-)  I hope you enjoyed today's focus on sentiments!  I really enjoyed creating these cards for today's post...it was fun to come up with different sentiment combinations.  If you are inspired to create a card based on this post, I'd love if you'd share it with me!  Just leave a link in the comments and I'll be sure to check it out!  

All supplies are linked in the thumbnails below.  If you mouse over each one, it will show you the name of the stamp set/supply used.  Thanks for stopping by!  

 

 

 

Basic Supplies for all cards