Sweet Strawberries, Art Gallery, Floating Frame Stamping Technique

I found a very beautiful card that used a technique I'd never hears of before.  It's called the "Floating Frame" technique.  It's kind of time consuming but SO worth it. There is a video for you to follow along to make this card. You can see that video here.   I have a few tips for you too.

The base of the card is a folded half-sheet of Basic White card stock. But to begin your card you can use a 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" piece of card stock. Then you don't have to worry about getting the actual card base dirty. 

You will be stamping all of the elements from the "Sweet Strawberries" set and punching them out. If you don't have the matching punch, you can fussy cut the pieces. I borrowed a friends punch so I could make this card. My punch is on backorder and is not here yet. This is a very popular set. I like it because it will cover several occasions. My strawberries were stamped using Poppy parade ink. The tops were stamped using Garden Green. The leaves were stamped using Granny Apple Green and the flowers were stamped using Flirty Flamingo ink. All of the outline images were stamped using black Memento ink.

Once you have all the pieces stamped and cut out, you need to add the tops to the strawberries. Be sure to glue the two front pieces of the tops down. I added glue to those two pieces and a bit to the top of the strawberry and then put the pieces together. 

Next the pieces were set on top of the Basic White piece. Once all of the pieces were in place you will need to take a piece of Press n Seal or masking paper. I didn't have any masking paper but I had plenty of Press n Seal. I would recommend that you tape the Press n Seal to a piece of copier paper. Cut it 5" x 7" so you have something to hold onto. You will be trimming it down later.  With your copier paper taped to the Press n Seal, you will set the sticky side down on top of the pieces you just laid out.  Turn it over and press the pieces onto the Press n Seal. Now you can trim the piece. I did it on my paper cutter. 

In the video she removes the card base so she could make sure none of the pieces were overlapping. I would do it by feeling the piece first. Don't remove the card stock unless you absolutely have to because you will need to put it back on and I found that a bit difficult to do. I suppose you could draw on the Press n Seal to know where the edges are so you can line it up again. Then you can trim the pieces that are hanging over the edges. Then you remove the card base or the 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" piece of card stock so you can cut the rectangle out of the center. The 5th largest rectangle was used from the "Rectangle Stitched Framelets" set. 

Taking the frame piece (not the center), turn it over and cover all the pieces with Dimensionals.  LOTS of Dimensionals, both large and small and tiny hand cut ones. You want to make sure that these pieces stick when it's time to remove the Press n Seal. 

Once all the Dimensionals are on you remove the backing on them.  Then you will put the piece on top of your card base. 

Wink of Stella was added to the sides of the strawberries and crystal rhinestones were set in place in open areas. 

The words are from the "Sweet Strawberries" set and were stamped using black Memento ink. I set the card up in my Staparatus because I don't trust my black ink pad. I was right not to trust it, I had to ink the words twice to get them nice and dark and solid. And that card was done.  But this is a bonus technique because you have that center square that was die cut. 

For the bonus card you will need to die cut two rectangles at the same time. They are the 2nd and 3rd largest stitched rectangles. Basic White card stock was used for this. This piece was then glued to the front of your second card base.  

The rectangle piece was done like the frame piece, Dimensionals all over the place. Then it was set in place on the center of the card. Wink of Stella and rhinestones were added too.

The words are from the "Art Gallery" set and were stamped on a scrap piece of Basic White card stock. It was trimmed close to the words. It measured 3/8" x 2". A Dimensional was added under the "H" and "p" in Happy and glue was added to the rest of the piece. It was set in place on the front of the card and the card was done.  

Isn't it SO pretty?  I want to just keep them!!! I suppose I should make another one so I can actually use it instead of keep it!  Let's just hope something better comes along and I can let go of these! Give this technique a try. It will work with any images that are around the size of these pieces.  

Thank you SO very much for taking your time to check out this pretty card and technique today,
Wanda