DIY Design: Make an Ikat Pattern in Photoshop

I am so. ready. for chevron to be done. Everything is chevron these days (and um, should totally be passe since it's been around for like four years now) and I'm so not into it. I've taken to unfollowing anyone on Pinterest who repins anything chevron because you know what, I just can't handle that kind of a mess in my life. 

You know what I do like? Ikat. I sure don't know how to pronounce it (eye-cat? ee-cot?) but I know I like it. Let's make it dudes. 

1. Open up a new canvas, whatever size you want the repeatable square of your pattern to be. I went with 200x200. If you want a smaller pattern, go with 100 or 150 square. And if you want a bigger pattern...yeah you get it.

2. In a new layer, use the rectangle tool (but pick the straight line setting) to draw lines between all of the centers of your square's sides, like so, to create a diamond shape.

3. In your toolbar, find a brush that's kind of uneven looking. Pick a color. Draw straight lines up and down inside your diamond, but keep them loose. No need to stay inside the lines.

4. Pick another color and do the same thing, but in a smaller, imaginary diamond shape inside your diamond.

5. Now, go into Filter>>Other>>Offset and change the adjustments until you have your design evenly in four corners, like so.

6. OPTIONAL. Use your secondary color to draw another little diamond in the white space. Save by choosing Edit>>Define Pattern.

7. Open up a new canvas, aaaaany size you want. Press shift+F5 (fill) and select 'Use pattern'. Under the pattern options, click the mini square with your pattern and watch it fill up the space! How lovely! :)

If you liked this tutorial, I'd love if you would pin the top image or share it. 

P.S. You might also like my quick tutorial on making patterned text in Photoshop.

How to Create Patterned Text in Photoshop

Things have gotten a bit calmer around these parts + I've had some oh-so-appreciated time to sit down + design, just for fun. I'm always a fan of word art + I've been combining that with my major inspiration as of late: patterns. 

I really fell in love with bright, vibrant patterns about a year ago, when I bought this beautiful skirt from the Liberty London line at J.Crew in Boston. Lately, I've been especially inspired by these bright patterns + using photoshop to create patterned text quotes (which I'll teach you how to do below!)

And with one really simple tool in Photoshop, you can make one of those patterns into this:

Isn't that cool? And it's really, really easy. Open up a new Photoshop file, with the dimensions that you want. I set 760 as the width (because that's the width of my blog) and 300 pixels as the height. You can always crop it down later! Press 'T' or the Text Button on the left hand command dock (it's a capital letter T). Click anywhere on your page and type out your quote, fixing the size to look all nice. Then, go to your 'layers' panel, click the little arrow at the top right and click "New Layer". In this layer, insert your pattern and click the little check at the top if it pops up. Then, all you have left to do is right-click on that layer with the pattern in it + click 'create clipping mask'.

That's all there is to it! I hope you have fun with this tutorial! If you make anything using this tutorial, I'd love if you'd send me a link, either in the comments or via email.

What inspires you to make art?

easy peasy photoshop: personalized notecards

First off--the winners of the design giveaway are Cara H. and Aimee W. You'll be receiving an email soon! If you did not win, don't cry! Premade templates are on sale for $15 until midnight tonight so don't miss your chance! Or if you're just too unique, how about something custom? I'd love to make some pretty for you!

This post was originally shared on the Whale and Wasp.

Today, I'm going to be sharing an installment in my series: "Easy Peasy Photoshop". I think lots of people get intimidated by Photoshop--but there's lots of fun things you can make with just a few basic skills! So even if you've never touched (/clicked) Photoshop before, I gotchu covered.

Specifically, I'm going to show you how to make personalized stationary. Super, right? I loooove writing letters and notes to people, and I think personalizing it adds a special little touch.

#1. Decide on a size. To keep things simple, I'm gonna make a plain 3x5 notecard. Open up Photoshop, click File>>New. When it gives you size options, it probably says pixels. Change that to inches and put in your desired size. Change your resolution to 111 pixels/inch. This will make 3x5 look pretty true to size on your screen.

EXPERT TIP: If you wanted to make really high quality note cards, you should put your resolution on at least 300 pixels/inch. But that gets a little tricky so don't try that if this is your first project.



#2: Go to View>>Rulers, and check it. Then, press 'T', just the letter on your keyboard. That'll get your text editor going. Line up your cursor just under 275 pixels on your top ruler (i.e. in the middle) and click.

#3: Choose a font + size up on the top leftish. I've recommended some fun free fonts down at the bottom.

#4: On the top of the screen, you'll see a little square that is probably black. If you want to change the color, click the top one and choose a color--this will be your text color. Right to the left of the color chooser, make sure your text is centered.



#5: Type away! You can choose to do your full name, initials, monogram or just a little message! If you need, you can highlight the text and change the size. Or if you need to move the text, hover below the text (your cursor will become and arrow) and drag it around.

#6: If you want, you can make lines by using the type tool again and holding underscore (Shift + -).



#7: Go to your layers manager and click the little arrow on the top right (under the 'x'). Click Merge Visible. Then, click Select>>All and copy the selection. (This is the layers manager.)



#8: Open up a Word document and paste. If you made a 3x5 notecard, you can fit 3 on a page if you make your margins smaller.

#9: Print! That's all there is to it! Well, and cut them out. But you can handle that. For best results, print on cardstock or a slightly heavier paper.

Now admire your pretty skills.

Will you make these personalized notecards? What would you like to learn how to make in photoshop?

I used Contribute font in this tutorial.

easy peasy photoshop: make a Pinterest-style collage

Hi everyone! Happy Tuesday! I hope you all have been resting well and enjoying your holiday weekend!

Today I'm sharing something new--my first ever Photoshop tutorial--Pinterest style! Now Photoshop can be really complicated and intimidating, but there's also some really great things you can make with really basic skills. Today we're gonna learn a little bit about 'layers' and how to resize and arrange images.

In the end, I'm going to teach you how to make a Pinterest style collage! I've made a few of these for myself recently and they are just so pretty. You can use quotes and put it on your wall or bathroom mirror. Or you can use fitness photos to keep somewhere that will motivate you! I'm sure y'all could come up with more ideas since you're such intelligent people (:



 

All photos are from my 'Destinations' board on Pinterest.

So we're gonna park on 'layers' for a moment. If you're a little familiar with Photoshop, you can skip these first basics and go to the heading about making the Pinterest-style collage.

Layers in Photoshop is like drawing on a bunch of pieces of transparent papers and then putting them on top of each other. This way you can move around or edit different parts of the pictures fairly easily.

So for instance, the first layer is usually the background, which is plain white. Then, you can put more layers of designs on top. By clicking the little eyeball, you can change which parts of the image are visible. So if you disabled the white background of a picture, it shows a checkered pattern but that means it has a transparent background.

To resize a photo, select the layer you're interested in resizing and go to Edit >> Free Transform. Then you can drag the edges of the picture to make it a different size. This tool is also a great/easy way to drag + drop your pictures.

EXPERT TIP: Watch the percentages of the width and height. You want to make them the same to make sure your picture stays proportional. To resize to a certain dimensions, you can type in the pixels in that little box in the top. Then change your other percentage to make sure it's proportional! Make sure you type in the W/H boxes not X/Y!

And now for the exciting part: making a Pinterest-style collage!

1. Open up a new file in Photoshop. The width should be whatever the width of your text area in your blog is. Mine is 640 pixels for example. The height can be anything, I'd recommend at least 900 pixels and you can crop it later.

2. Select all the pictures you want and copy-paste them into Photoshop. They will all go in separate layers--this is good!



3. In your head (or on a calculator), subtract 30 from your text area width. Then divide it by three. You can round to the nearest whole number; it doesn't have to be that exact. For example: my blog is 640-30 = 610. Divided by 3 is 203. That number is the width that you want all of your pictures to be.

4. Resize all of your photos to that width, using the method above. Don't forget your proportions! I don't want to see stretched pictures. This, below, is bad. Please don't make anyone's eyes look at this.



5. Now, rearrange your pictures (with Edit>>Free Transform) into three columns. Leave a little space between the columns and each picture. If you used my number method, you can have 15 pixels between each column, but you can just eyeball it.

6. Click the little eye next to the BACKGROUND layer. Then click the little arrow on the layer menu and click Merge Visible. And save!

Ta-da!! There you go, your own beautiful Pinterest-style collage.

I think they're prettiest when you mix up vertical and horizontal photographs but it's all up to you!

Get fancy! Make your background a different color! Do not click the little eye (step 6). Instead, select the background layer. Click the little magic wand in your tool box and select magic eraser. Make sure your tolerance box says 1. Click anywhere on the canvas. Press Shift + F5 and select a color!

Now go forth and Photoshop! If you post any to your blog, share the link here so I can see your pretty new skillz! And if you want to be super lovely, you can tweet or pin this lovely tutorial with my icons floating on your left. (: