Make Your Own Digital Embellishments

As I was playing with this month's Oopsie Daisy Digital Kit, I looked at one of the backgrounds and thought it would make a nice looking embellishment, so I had to give it a try!

1. Open a new document with a transparent background.

2. Create a 3x3" square in a new layer using the Marquee tool. Color the square white. Tip: to make the square exactly 3", use the settings panel for the Marquee tool to specify a 3" square.

3. Open Background03 and drag it onto the new document.

4. Resize it to fit in the square, leaving about 1/8" border of white showing all the way around.
Tip: to constrain the shape so it remains a square while resizing, hold the Shift key.

5. Add a small bevel to the white layer using this setting:

The bevel effect is subtle, but really helps give the item depth.

Bonus: Add a black layer between the background and white layer for added 'pop.'

I really liked the look of this, so I duplicated the embellishment in a few different sizes and used it for one of this month's QDDLs:

Repeating the embellishment in different sizes and using the same image in the background helps tie it all together!

Next, I tried the same technique with parts of a few of the other backgrounds and overlays. Here's what I came up with . . .

Bonus: Create several of these in different sizes and print them out to use as cutaparts on your cards and layouts. You don't need to add the bevel effect in step five if you're going to print these out. Simply use your grid ruler to keep a 1/8" white border around the items when trimming.

The next time you're looking for an embellishment or two, look no further than your digital kit backgrounds and overlays. There's no limit to what you can do!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

-Ron