RESOURCES

I am using CS5.

First, you want to get out two pictures. For me, it was this one, which I cropped and placed a psd based on this one.

Next I found a texture! I wanted mine to be quite pretty and innocent so i went with a floral pattern, you can choose anyone you want, but as only a corner of it would be visible, I think you should get a pattern. If you don't have any textures, look through this blog which i use aaaaaalllllll the time. I used this texture.

Ok now onto the actual tutorial.

First, put both your picture and your texture in the same layers palette, so it looks like this. The texture should be underneath your picture.

Next, you want to make sure you're on the picture, and select the polygonal lasso tool (Which is the third down the tools bar, if you're using cs5).

With this, make a zig-zig pattern across one of the edges of your picture.

Like this:

and then delete whatever you have selected, you should now see your texture peeking through! With this in mind, I suggest adjusting your texture so that the bits you want are visible in the cropped part of the image. For example, I turned mine around a bit so most of the floral part was visible, and then i got part of the texture that wasnt going to be shown and just added it to the bits that were not covered.

From here, we can start to create the branchy things on the zig-zagged parts. This part is fairly easy and you dont really have to follow my instructions, or any instructions. Go to Filter>Liquify or just press ctrl+shift+x. 

This filter allows you to drag parts of the image to create a liquid effect. What I did, was grab the pointed end of the zigzag first and make it the biggest, then I would do random ones around the end and occasionally create another branchy thing from a branchy thing, so it looks...branchy.