Christmas time is coming and I know many of you, just like me, enjoy creating your own decorations at home, in the company of your friends and family. It’s more fun and these decorations have much bigger value than the ones bought in the mall.
So, today, I came up with this idea of creating a wreath. And, as a basis for it, I used styrofoam. I made it with the stuff I had at home and I hope you will like it enough to try and do something like this yourself, following this DIY tutorial.
1. Printing images
Print some of your photos, use images of your friends, family, or pets (as I did in this occasion) … in 2×2 inches size. Of course, I could not resist but to decorate my images with Photoshop brushes: Christmas II Photoshop Brushes (20+20+20) + 20 PNGs, and I used them as photo masks (there are few brushes in a set which can be used as photo masks too. Also I used one of the free Photoshop brushes from GreenBulbGang.Com – Grunge Stars)
And, well, I printed them out …
2. Preparation
Prepare the following: styrofoam, fabric, colorful fabric ribbons, wire, pine cones, gold color, glue gun.
3. Cutting the styrofoam (Part I)
Before cutting a circle, of course, we need to mark the styrofoam, I draw two circles using a pen, pick and a rope. No, that’s not my hand :) My hubby helped me.
4. Cutting the styrofoam (Part II)
That’s it. Now I had to cut it out. First I cut the smaller one. I know there is a styrofoam cutter, but I do not have it. So I used a simple knife. It was really messy. But I manage it.
5. Voila, that was the hardest part!
The hardest part is done! You can always buy something like this in a store. But I didn’t. Because this is DIY Christmas wreath :)
6. Dressing up
I dressed-up this wreath-to-be in a dark green cloth decorated with gold stars, moons and other drawings… I glued the cloth to the styrofoam with a glue gun. Yes, that’s me gluing the cloth :)
7. Dressing-up – completed
And, here’s the result:
8. Wiring and decorating
Now, I cut some wire and simply clasped it around the wreath-to-be. The upper part was twisted in a spiral so that we can insert the images. I didn’t have thicker wire. If I had a thicker wire I’d just pin it in the styrofoam. Also, I prepared pine cones and sprayed them with gold color.
9. Pine cones
Finally I glued the pine cones with a glue gun.
10. Inserting the photos
OK. That’s it. Now is time for printed images! Cut them, and glue them over the spiral wire. If you just attach them into spiral, they will fall off.
11. The final touch
I felt this wreath was missing something, so I added red and gold ribbons all around it.
12. OK. One more final touch
I added some bows around wires too!
13. And … voila!
Finito! bsilvia Christmas Wreath (2011/2012 edition) is ready! :))
I hope you will like it and maybe even try to do it yourself. Should you have any questions, let me know I will be more than happy to help.
Here is what Mr. SpaceCat thought of it:
Mr. Alphons was not impressed either
But, the old queen, Poofah, she wanted to eat the pine cones ?!?!?
Love you all, have fun and may the peace be with you.
Silvia
Commercial:
CYBER WEEK SALE! GET 1600+ High-Quality Photoshop brushes for peanuts. This week only.
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Gang,
December is here and Christmas is knocking at the door! I know many of you are looking for the right decorations, stamps, shapes and, of course, Photoshop brushes for your Christmas designs!
That is why I worked so hard for the last few days. And that is why I am so tired now :)
Tired but happy!
Happy because I am happy with the results of my work!
And I hope you will be happy to because, today, I proudly present you, fresh, still warm, out of the oven,
Christmas II Photoshop brushes 2010. Edition!
You can play with them a bit, use the brushes on this on-line digital canvas:
(It might take a while for the backgrounds to load so please be patient! You will have fun! I guarantee!)
Use the keyboard shortcuts :
Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) and arrow keys to rotate and re-size the brushes.
Christmas II Photoshop brushes 2010. Edition features:
- 20 Photoshop brushes in three sizes
- 20 transparent PNG files
- Compatible with Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, PaintShopPro, Paint.NET and more…
- Commercial use license!
| Preview Christmas II Photoshop brushes 2010. Edition |
OK. I hope you like it.
Now, it’s time for me to go and get a good sleep!
Love ya all,
Silvia
P.S.
Look around my little shop, you might find some interesting stuff ;) ->
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Gang,
I surely hope you are going to love at least half as much as I do!
Ladies and Gentleman!
Today, just a few weeks before Christmas, I proudly present you the first Graphics-Illustrations.Com On-Line application with a simple name:
Photoshop brushes On-Line Playground
This simple Photoshop brushes playground will let you play with my Photoshop brushes, so you get a feeling what it’s like to work with them and try before you buy them.
Of course, this little application will not let you do everything Photoshop let’s you do with them but still you will be able to:
- Rotate it: Ctrl (on Mac Cmd) + Left and Right Arrow Keys
- Re-size it: Ctrl (on Mac Cmd) + Up and Downl Arrow Keys
- Change transparency
- Color it (solid colors only)
You can, also, choose whether you want to work on some of the backgrounds I provided or you want to work on a solid color background.
Finally, you get to pick the font and write something. For instance, you could try to make your very own Christmas card design!
Use “Clear” button to start again!
In this particular Playground you get to play with my PREMIUM Photoshop brushes set: Winter in Swirls (33+33+33).
Have fun (important).
It might take a while for the application to load backgrounds so please be patient. Thank you :)
- To rotate the brush – Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl(Cmd on Mac) and Left/Right Arrow keys.
- To re-size the brush – Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl(Cmd on Mac) and Up/Down Arrow keys.
Of course, as I said, you know that you can do a lot more with those brushes in Photoshop!
*Hint! Click outside of the digital canvas to deselect the text.
So, if you like this set and would like to use it in your own commercial projects, get it here ->
Winter in Swirls Photoshop brushes set
And, finally, if you want to play with 800+ Photoshop brushes MEGA SET and would like to get Winter in Swirls set for free, now it’s the time to act:
Buy 800+ Photoshop brushes MEGA SET before 5th of December and get Winter in Swirls set for FREE! Don’t forget 800+ Photoshop brushes MEGA SET also includes LIFETIME FREE UPGRADES and 50% OFF COUPON CODE VALID FOR ALL BRUSHES from Graphics-Illustrations.Com Shop!
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Gang, this will be one short post. It is about giving. And I will keep it short. Promise.
So, as soon as we started our Facebook fan page we proclaimed to following:
And if you become FB fan, expect to receive gifts! :)
And there were gifts!
So, in the giving spirit, today we prepared another gift for our Facebook fans, it is one cool Christmas / New Year 3600×3600 px background (12×12 inches at 300dpi) that was made with Christmas Photoshop brushes set.
I was really happy to see that many people liked it and we’ve got good some really nice comments too. Also, for Facebook fans it is much easier to submit their works for out Christmas 2009 Graphics Competition (still not too late if you want to apply).
Now, for those of you who are curious on how it’s done, it’s pretty simple. It was done with:
Christmas Photoshop brushes set (55+55) :)
Features:
* 55 HiRes Photoshop brushes (300 – 2428 pixels)
* 55 smaller Photoshop brushes (130-1400 pixels)
* Commercial license
* PC/Mac Compatible
* Compatible with Photoshop 7.0, CS, CS2, CS3, CS4 and CS5
Click here for preview:
Very important! I prepared a little something for all buyers of this set. But, I want this little something to be your Christmas surprise gift!
Have fun creating!
S :)
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OK. As I promised in my previous post, today I will show you how to display your work on Zazzle and give yourself a chance to sell some of your work done with my Photoshop brushes.
So, dimensions of our Christmas Party Invitation were 5.25” x 5.25” which is 2550 x 2550 pixels. It is important to start the document in proper dimensions. If we don’t do that – later on the things might get complicated.
Here are some explanations that you know before starting your own designs (explanation from Zazzle):
“Bleed” is a printing term used to indicate the area that will be trimmed off after the job is printed and cut down to the finished size. This ensures that the design is printed to the full edge of the product. Our paper products contain a Safe Area and a Bleed Area. Always make sure any important parts of your design fall inside the Safe Area, and that your design background fully extends through the Bleed Area. Whatever is in the Bleed Area will get trimmed off, leaving your design printed all the way up to the Product Edge.
Zazzle supports images in JPEG, PNG, PDF, and Adobe Illustrator (AI) formats – so, if you are working with transparent images PNG, PDF i AI formats will be the formats of your choice.
So, let’s roll the sleeves and start having fun! :)
Once you start a new project on Zazzle you will be offered several templates to start with.
A well done wizard will guide you through the creating process:
Pick the invitation size:
And add images. Basically, images are front and back size of our invitation in .jpg format.
So, let’s select “My computer” option …
And upload our invitation.
Not much to do from this point on. Here is the preview of the front side:
Now, let’s pick the back side:
And add the back side of our invitation:
Voila!
Now it is only a matter of posting our invitation in our store and making it available for purchase:
Of course, we will need to add some details to to, like entering a Title, Subtitle and the Description of our product:
That’s it! We’re done! Time for a cup of tea … or coffee!
Or, even better – make another product! Make a mug, or T-Shirt, or baseball hat, badge …. etc … etc …
It was pretty simple and fast – you will agree! I hope you like the idea and I hope you see, once again, on this example, how Photoshop brushes can be of a great help when it comes to speeding things up or bridging the creativity gaps we all run into from time to time.
OK. That’s it for today. Have a great weekend and have fun creating!
Hugs,
Silvia
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Create unique Christmas Party Invitations for your friends and family or start a new job and earn some extra money. Here goes another short tutorial where I’m trying to prove, one more time, how easy, fast and fun it can be to use Photoshop brushes.
I this little tutorial I will show you how to use your passion and love for visual arts, turn your creative juices into something new and surprise your friends and/or family. In part two of this tutorial I will show you how to upload your Christmas Party Invitation to Zazzle and try to make some extra $$ with it!
And it will be fun!
So, for starters, let’s what we’ll need. Uhmmm … first we will need some nice, fancy-schmancy holiday font. You might have some already, but I always like to explore new stuff and I just ain’t gonna miss the opportunity to visit my favorite fonts places: www.dafont.com.
For this little occasion of ours - I picked this Santa’s Sleigh typography.
After downloading and installing the font (I hope you know how to do that, if not here is the hint: put them into Fonts folder :), we are going to open our good old Photoshop and create 5,25″x5,25″ document at 300 dpi. These dimensions (especially the dpi) are required by zazzle.com, so we’ll stick to it.
In this case I will load my favorite Christmas Photoshop Brushes set (55 brushes) (available in my shop for only $9,99), or you can use FREE LITE version (7 brushes) from GBG download area.If you are a GBG member you already have the download link and if you’re not – now here is a great opportunity! Become a GBG member and get access to 80+ Photoshop brushes sets including the FREE LITE Christmas Photoshop brushes set and FREE LITE Snowflakes Photoshop brushes set!
Press F5 to display Photoshop brushes window, load them and press B to activate Brush tool.
Because our Christmas Party Invitation has front and back side, we are going to organize our work in two Layer Groups, first Layer Group will be used for the front side of the invitation and the second Layer Group (which we will create on a later stage) will be used for the back side.
Now, let’s use some brushes! Press B to activate Brush tool, set foreground color to some light gray and simply add the brushes to our canvas.
Now, let’s add some snow!
Let’s add a new Layer (we are going to need it later) pick the snowflake brush and bit lighter gray color. Play with the brush settings as demonstrated below: adjust Shape Dynamics, Scattering for dispersion and Other Dynamics for the various tones of gray color and Spacing to adjust space between the snowflakes.
Now, just a few strokes with our brush on the canvas and voila! It’s snowing!
Now add desired text using Santa’s Sleigh font (downloaded from www.dafont.com).
And the front side of our invitation is over!
Now, let’s do some work on the back of the invitation. Create a new Layer Group and duplicate the layer with the snowflakes only.
On the back of the invitation type RSVP and make a dashed line with the Text tool (T). Spacing between the characters should be set at 100 (or more).
We are done :) Now print this card on your printer or use your local printing company or create account on zazzle.com.
That was simple, easy and fast, wasn’t it!
In the next tutorial I will show you how to make this invitation available for sale.
Whatever you do, do not forget: Have Fun Creating!
S :)
PS:
Of course, if you don’t feel like doing the whole thing by yourself, just DOWNLOAD this Christmas Party Invitation template in psd format HERE –>>
Sorry, 5 days subscription free download offer expired. Download is now available after joining GBG. Please read about our free download policy and join our GBG for more free downloads. Thanks!
Note: Santa’s Sleigh font is not included in the download (you will have to download it from www.dafont.com!)
And yes, you can sell stuff that you created with my Photoshop brushes! That’s because all of my Photoshop brushes come with a CU which stands for Commercial Use License, meaning you can create stuff with my brushes and sell it. So, get more great brushes from my Photoshop brushes shop and start creating ->
Orrrr … you can get all of my Photoshop brushes for 1/2 price! Find out more ->
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Photoshop brushes that are presented in this post are called "Weekdays", actually these are nicely written days of the week. If you are looking for Photoshop brush or brush for photoshop to help you out, say, creating a barbecue invitation that one would help you state a day of the week. This is just one of number free photoshop brushes that are offered on this site.
Read More Post a comment (8)Of course, gang, not everything needs to be so gloomy and doomy just because the big guys on Wall Street messed it up. They still can’t take our Christmas spirit away, isn’t it?
I certainly will not allow be intimidated with all this and I recommend you do the same. Cheer up! You might even take it easy on spending on Christmas presents but you can still make presents for your beloved ones. And if you make the presents yourself, I promise, they will have a special value and meaning for the one who gets them. Because, in these kind of presents you invested your time. And time is the most precious gift that was given to us on a day when we were born.
So, for all of you creative souls, scrap-bookers, design enthusiasts and professional graphic designers. tonight I prepared something that you will cherish and appreciate this season. Tonight, I bring you:
2009 MEGA Christmas Brushes Set
55 brushes in 2 sizes (110 in total)
[ PREVIEW PREMIUM PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES SET - Christmas Photoshop brushes set (55+55) ]
[ GET PREMIUM PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES SET - Christmas Photoshop brushes set (55+55) ]
And what will this set do to you?
It will help you with:
- Preparing Christmas scrap books,
- Greeting cards
- Gift wrapping paper
- Even decorating your apartment,
- Make a gift like a mug or t-shirt or clothing on Zazzle orCafepress
- Let your imagination go wild from here
And for professional designers, you already know what I’m talking about. Some of these brushes could be a life saver on a tight deadlines. For everyone who has a site or a blog – decorate your websites with this set.
And you know how all of my brushes come with a commercial license. They are all in High Resolution. They are compatible with all versions of Photoshop from 7.0 up to CS4.
I mean, with this set you can spend less this Christmas and make your present unique and beautiful.
Of course, as usual for those of you who really can’t afford $9.99 for a full package, I prepared a free, lite version of 7 brushes. I am a struggling artist myself and I know how it is not to have money so I always give a piece of my work away for free for those of you who can’t afford.
[ PREVIEW LITE PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES SET - Christmas Photoshop brushes set (7) ]
[ DOWNLOAD LITE PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES SET - Christmas Photoshop brushes set (7) *5 DAYS subscription free!* Free Download now available after joining our Green Bulb Gang ]
At the same time I am very grateful to all of you who buy my brushes, support my work and benefit from it at the same time. That’s why I prepared a little something for all buyers of this set. But, I want this little something to be a little Christmas surprise gift for you! This offer is valid until 1st of January 2009.
And, of course, I must not forget to mention, all of my ex and future buyers of 800+ Photoshop Brushes MEGA Set will get this one for 1/2 the price, i.e. $4.99.
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