Have you ever found a great layout and then searched and searched for just the right sentiment?  One that would say what you wanted while fitting in the space allotted on your layout?  Have you ever been frustrated with finding the right sentiment and then realizing that it wouldn’t fit where you wanted it to? 

Well fret no more!  I want to remind you of a quick and easy technique that you can use to “manipulate” your sentiments to make them the perfect fit for ANY layout.

I made this card for my F-I-L for

father’s day... he is an avid golfer (like father like son I suppose).  I found this incredible sketch at Katharina’s blog.  (Holy Moly... this girl can make a GORGEOUS card!)   Anyway... I picked her sketch (I was drawn to the two overlapping circles!) and found the the stamps (the golf ball and the tee-riffic day from Hambo), paper, and sentiment that I wanted to use for it.  Unfortunately, this sentiment was split up and written in two straight lines.  (See the original here...scroll down to the pairs.) 

Well, I knew I needed my sentiment to curve along the edge of the larger circle AND I knew I wanted to use this sentiment.  To solve the problem, I could do one of two things... cut the sentiment up into pieces or use the masking technique.  Since I didn’t want to permanently change the look of the sentiment, I decided to mask... sort of.

Here’s how I did it... I took my black marker and colored in the word “Hope” and stamped it on the circle.  Then, I cleaned my stamp REALLY well and stamped off on scratch paper (otherwise you will get shadows of the previously stamped words) and then colored in and stamped the next word... and so on.  This way I was able to place each word just where I wanted it.  Of course, the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig is a life saver for this technique.

Start looking at those sentiments... and think of new ways you can use them!  I think you will LOVE all of the new options this technique allows you.  Oh... and have a TEE-RIFFIC day!