Cynthia's Song

For this tutorial you will need the following:

Paint Shop Pro, I am using PSP X, you should be able to use any version.

Tube of choice, I am using the artwork of Amy Matthews, which you need a license to use.  

You can find her artwork at CDO

Scrap kit of choice. I am using Cynthia, a PTU kit by Amy Marie  

Font of choice, I am using Fool For Love

Mask: gemsmask189 from Gem's Taggin Scraps

Plugins: No outside plugins used

Just remember that my choices of papers and elements is just a suggestion, change it up and make it yours! You don't have to follow mine exactly.

Add a drop shadow of your choosing to tubes & elements throughout. I usually use 1, 1, 50, 5 unless otherwise noted.

Let's get started!

Open a new canvas 850 x 850 pixels with a white background

open 91 copy and paste as a new layer 

click inside with your magic wand, selections, modify, expand 2, selections, invert

open paper 8 copy and paste as a new layer just above the white background

click delete on your keyboard, leave selected

Open your close up tubes, arrange one on the left, click delete on your keyboard

arrange the other on the right, click delete on your keyboard

Change the blend mode on both tubes to Luminance (L) and lower the opacity on both to 20

Open your main tube, copy and paste as a new layer, arrange in the middle

Now we'll add our elements, you can check my tag for exact placement

element 46 resize 80% rotate right 55, duplicate 2 times, mirror one, drag one to the right, one to the middle

drop the opacity of all 3 layers to 50

element 2 resize 45% arrange on bottom left

element 5 resize 45% arrange behind packages to the right

element 51 resize 80% arrange on left, duplicate & mirror

element 47 resize 40%, rotate right 70 arrange on left, duplicate a few more times 

and arrange across bottom. Flip some so they point down instead of up

element 90 resize 40% arrange behind frame & paper on right

element 57 resize 40% arrange on left behind boxes duplicate a couple times, arrange across bottom

element 83  resize 60% arrange on bottom, just to the right of the tube

element 59 resize 75%  arrange on right, duplicate, mirror and arrange in the middle, 

duplicate, arrange on left

copy and paste paper 24 just above the white background and apply your mask

crop and resize

add your copyright and credits as needed

add your text and save

Naughty List

For this tutorial you will need the following: Paint Shop Pro, I am using PSP X but you should be able to use any version. Tube of choice. I am using the artwork of Amy Matthews, which you have to purchase at AMI. Scrap kit of choice. I am using Monti's It's Snow Time, which is a PTU kit that must be purchased at AMI. Mask of choice. I am using a mask by EssexGirl called SnowflakeStar. Scroll to the bottom of the page, it's the last one. Font of choice. I used FFF Urban on the sign and CAC Pinafore for my name. Plugins: Eye Candy 3.1 Glow (optional) Please remember that a tutorial is just a guide. You can use a different tube, scrap kit, or just use the same, and change the elements and papers used and have it come out looking completely different. Feel free to experiment and make it your own. Let's begin. Open a new 700 x 700 blank canvas and flood fill with white. This gives us a white background to be able to see what we're doing and room to work. We'll delete the white at the end and crop the image down. In your kit, open Frame Square 9, copy and paste as a new layer, resize about 75%, image, flip. Take your selection tool and click inside the frame, make sure you get all the little sections in between the ribbon and the frame, selections modify, expand by 5, selections invert. Open paper 5, rotate by 90 in either direction, copy and paste as a new layer, image resize about 55% making sure resize all layers is unchecked. Click delete on your keyboard. Drag below your frame layer. Leave selected and open your tube, copy and paste as a new layer. Duplicate your tube, and hide the top tube layer. Take your eraser tool and erase the bits that hang over your frame. Deselect and drag the original tube layer below your frame, add a drop shadow. Add a drop shadow to your frame also. Unhide your duplicated tube layer. Make sure it is above your frame layer. Erase the bits that hang over the frame and ribbon. You don't have to be super careful, because you've already erased the bits on the bottom tube and that one will show through below your top tube. Basically you have the top tube to show the parts that are above the frame layer so you don't have to be super careful using one tube and erasing all the bits pixel by pixel. Open the It's Snowtime Sign 5 element, resize by 60% and add a drop shadow. Use your text tool and type out on the boards "I'm on Santa's Naughty List" You'll have to put a few words on each board and rotate them slightly to make them fit right. Merge all 3 text layers together after converting them to raster layers. Open a few other elements, place them on your tag, resizing and adding a drop shadow as necessary. When I added the tree, I also put a glow of about 5 around the tree before adding the drop shadow. Open paper 2, copy and paste as a new layer, bring down to the bottom just above the white background layer. Open your mask in psp, and go to layers, new mask layer, from image, find your mask in the drop down box, and for this mask, you need to be sure that invert mask data is ticked. Apply the mask, then delete that layer and merge the 2 layers into one group. You may want to resize it and/or change the opacity of the mask layer. Add your name. I used CAC Pinafore with my background set to #7f3738. Then I converted to a raster layer, selections, select all, float, defloat, modify, expand 2 and added a new raster layer below my name layer. Flood fill with white, deselect add a drop shadow to the white layer and merge the two layers together. Add your Copyright and license info and then crop your image, delete the white background layer and save as a .png so it's transparent.