Christmas Star (ftu)

This tutorial was written on November 20th 2009 by Susan aka Hippiedaze.
The idea for this tag is off my own head lol and any resemblance is purely coincidence.
General Knowledge of psp is required, tutorial was written in psp 9 but will work in other versions.

Supplies Needed

Tube/s of Choice, I used the artwork of Keith Garvey, you must have a proper license to use his work please visit MPT - mypsptubes - HERE .
FTU Scrap Kit 'Feliz Natal' by Bel Vidotti and you can download this fabuous kit from Bel's blog - HERE.
Template Used - Vix Template #37 and this can be downloaded from Vix's blog - HERE.
Mask Used - WSL Mask #239 by Chelle @ Wee Scots Lass Creations - HERE.
Plugin Used - Eye Candy 4000, Gradient Glow.
Effects Used - Textured Effects, Weave.

Save mask to your psp folder and open all supplies needed before we begin....

Ready... Lets get started... this tutorial is another quick and easy one.

Open the template in your psp workspace and hit ctrl & d to duplicate the template, this way you will save the original template for re using again and again, close the orginial now and on the new image delete the copyright layer, go to image and select resize then choose to resize all layers by 85% smartsize, just make sure the resize all layers box is checked for this one, click ok.

Go to layers and select new raster layer then change your foreground colour to white in the colour palette and select the floodfill tool then click in the canvas to change the transparent new layer to white, move this layer all the way to the bottom layer of your canvas.

Activate the background to colour layer and in your foreground colour tab choose a colour from the kit or one that matches your tube, grab your colour to target brush tool and then move your mouse over the whole of the layer to change to your choosen colour.

Activate the bottom rectangle layer, using the magic wand tool click inside the pink area of the rectangle, now take a paper from the kit and paste as a new layer, go to selections, select invert then hit delete on your keyboard, this will erase the paper around the rectangle.

Repeat that step with the same of different paper from the kit, you can also delete the original rectangle layers as you go along.

Activate the bottom rectangle frame layer now and go to effects, select dropshadow and add a shadow of your choice to the frame layer, do the same with the top rectangle frame layer.

Now activate the top fill layer and with the magic wand again click inside the star, take the tube of your choice, a close up works well for this one, paste the tube as a new layer and place which part you want inside the star, i choose a close up of the main tube and used her face for my star fills, once you have the tube placed where you want it go to selections and select invert then hit delete on your keyboard to erase any extra tube part around the star.

Repeat that step on the bottom fill layer, you can use a different part of the tube or like mine i used the same part but mirrored the tube, delete the original fill layers here too.

Activate the middle fill layer and go to adjust, select brightness/contrast then move the brightness slider all the way to the right, this will change the colour of the fill to white, now go to effects and choose textured effects, weave, use the following settings :-
Gap - 2 ... Width - 7 ... Opacity - 9 ... Weave colour - Red ... Gap colour - Red ... Fill Gaps - Checked, click ok.

Now for the star layers which are all the same so simply follow this step for all 3 layers, i left the stars white, go to effects, select eye candy 4000, gradient glow and use the following settings :-
Glow Width - 6.00 ... Soft Corners - 25 ... Opacity - 100 ... Colour - Red, click ok.

I left the wordart layers as they were for this tutorial but you can colourise them as you like.

Activate the bottom white layer and take a paper from the kit, paste as a new layer and then go to layers tab and select load mask from disc, find the mask that you saved at the start which is WSL Mask #239, use the following settings :-
Source Luminace - Checked ... Fit to Canvas - Checked ... Invert Transparency - Unchecked ... Hide all Mask - Checked, click ok then go to the layer palette and merge group. At this stage i grabbed my deform tool and pulled out the centre nodes a little all round so that you can see a bit more of the mask.

Now its time to add some elements and your main tube so activate the top layer and we will paste the main tube first, you may want to resize the tube a little depending on the size you work with, i resized my tube by 85% bicubic and make sure the resize all layers tab is unchecked for this layer, place tube where you want it or like mine to the right side of your canvas, add a dropshadow to the tube.

Decorate the rest of your tag with some elements from the kit, i used the tree, some holly and baubles but this is your choice so be creative and add whatever else you like, each element should be resized as needed and placed where you want them also add a dropshadow to the elements.

Nice n easy right? I hope so lol

Now if you want to crop or resize the tag do it now as resizing can sometimes make the text layers fuzzy.

Add your name in your font of choice, i added the same gradient glow as the star frames here.
Add artist info, copyright info and your own info.

All done.

Save your tag as a jpeg or png file.

Thanks for trying my tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it and as always id love you to send your creations, addy is over there on the right>>>>