Sweet as Candy

Materials Needed:

• Template
• VM natural : Acid Rain
• Scrap kit of choice. I am using Girls Night by Bea Creations that can be found here.
• Two tubes of choice by the same artist. I am using the work of Keith Garvey. This tube was purchased from MyPSPTubes.com but is now available at PSPTubesEmporium!

Open your template in Photoshop.

Now let us add some layer styles.


Select your "Back" layer and double click that layer's thumbnail in the layers pallet. Add these styles to the window that pops up:


Apply the same styles to your "Outer Bar" and "Outer Rectangle" Layers.

Open a New 50x50 pixel image and flood fill with white. Go to Filter > Noise > Add noise: 85

Now to Edit > Define Pattern.

Close this image.

Select your "Outer Circle" layer and apply these styles:


Select your "Sweet as Candy" layer and add these styles:


Select your "Back" layer.

Open paper of your choice.

Use your move tool to move the paper directly onto your tag canvas. Position it over the "Back" layer and right click the paper layer in the layer's pallet. Choose Create Clipping Mask.

Select your "Outer Circles" layer and place another paper on top of it. Create Clipping Mask again.

Do this for all your layers EXCEPT your "Outer Circle" layer.

After you have placed papers over all of your shapes, go to Select > All
Then Image > Crop

This is about what you should have so far:


Select the paper layer above your "Inner Bar" layer.

Open a doodle or swirl and place somewhere around the center of the canvas.

Now add these styles to your doodle:



Now open three flowers of your choice and position them where they are barely showing above the rectangle in the center. Something like shown here:


Add a drop shadow of your choice using the blending options of the layers. (double click layer thumbnails)

Select the paper layer above your "Outer Rectangle" layer and add your first Tube to the canvas. Position it where you would like and add a drop shadow. You may also use Alien Skin Eye Candy 5 > Impact : Perspective Shadow on this layer (as I have done).

add a flower stem of your choice. Add a drop shadow.

Open another flower and position it behind the circle layers. Somewhat like so:


Add a drop shadow to this layer.

Open another flower stem and place it something like this:


Add a drop shadow again.

Now select the paper above your "Inner Circle" layer and open your smaller tube.

Position it where you would like it and then right click the layer in the layers pallet and Create Clipping Mask.

Add a drop shadow to this layer also.

Now is a good time to add any and all copyrights to your tag so you don't forget.

Add a name to the tag and you are done with the static part of the tag.

Here is what I have so far:


You can stop here, or you can continue with the animation.



Open your Animations window if you have not done so already. Window > Animation.

The first frame is already created for you.

Select the paper layer above your "Back" layer.

Duplicate it twice.

Hide the duplicates (click the eye beside the layer in the layers pallet)

Select the original and apply the Acid Rain filter with these settings:

Amount: 3
Inner Brightness: 255
Outer Brightness: 0

Now duplicate your frame in your animation window by clicking the little icon that resembles a piece of paper.


Hide your original paper layer that you just applied the filter to and UNhide the first duplicate.

Use the Acid Rain filter again with the same settings. BUT change the random seed just a little.

Duplicate your frame again and hide your freshly filtered layer. UNhide the next duplicate and apply the same filter with the same settings and changing once again the random seed.

Select your second frame in your animations window.

Now select your "Outer Circle" layer in your layers pallet.

Double click the layer's thumbnail to bring up the blending options.

Select the "Pattern Overlay"

DO NOT change any of the settings. Instead, if you hover over your canvas, you will see that your cursor is in the shape of the move tool.

Simply drag your pattern around a little bit and click OK.

Do the same thing for the Third frame in your animations window.

Now your animation is finished.

Now we want to set the delay of the frames higher than 0.

Select all your frames. (click first frame, then shift+click your last frame)

Click the arrow beside the number at the bottom of one of the frames. Set this number to 0.08 (there is an "Other" option) You may also play with this setting to get the effect you want.



To view your animation, simply click the play button.

Now to save your animation:

Go to File > Save for Web

This will bring up a completely different save window than you are probably used to. Simply set everything like so:

Note that these settings are the ones that I use for the background of the posts of THIS forum.



And this is my result:



I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial! I would love to see your results.