Thursday, December 16, 2010

*

How to create a banner in 10 steps or less [not including duplicates]. This little project I had a bit of fun with. It was soothing for me to cut out these letters. Soothing for me to hang them. Soothing for me to see them. That was the point. Entirely.

I made this using Crystal Wilkerson's Merry & Bright Pack #2. Want one?

  1. Just open up the Alpha of your choice [it comes in three colors + if you opt to recolor your options are really endless].
  2. One by one copy and paste the letters you want into a new document [I used 8.5 x 12]. Each letter should have it's own layer. Now keep in mind that to make "All Is Calm" I had three different "L" layers, etc.
  3. What you are going to do is select a layer + resize the letter by clicking on a corner of the bounding box. This will open up some options on your task bar. You're going to want to type in a number to increase or decrease the size depending on the size you want. For example: I wanted mine to be approximately 3 inches tall so I increased to 250% by typing 250% in the W: ___ box and clicked the chain icon to constrain the proportions [don't forget this step... your stuff will be wonky if you do *ctrl + z will undo it if you forget*].
  4. duplicate the layer [ctrl + j]
  5. flip the duplicated layer vertical [image + rotate + flip layer vertical]
  6. move layer so that the tops of the letters touch [this is where you will fold + glue them back to back over the string or whatever, so try not to move side to side. Just up and down].
  7. You should have something that looks like the "M" above. Merge those two layers [ctrl + e]. Only those two layers.
  8. Repeat with remaining letters.
  9. Cut out + fold over string of choice. Glue wrong sides together.
  10. Hang + enjoy. I envision a whole slew of happy Christmas sayings...

Sound a bit confusing? Sorry. It's really not. And, suprisingly, it didn't take that long to accomplish. If you have any questions just ask. If needed I could include screen shots or whatever to clear up confusion.

1 comment:

  1. Genius!! I will be making multiples for multiple holidays... awesome!

    ReplyDelete