Happy 4th Of July

Happy 4th of July

This tutorial was written by me. 

Any similarity is purely coincidental. 

It was done using Gimp

 but can be done with a program of your choice

Supplies:

Cluster frame called Happy 4th of July by Angela of Queenie's Signatures  -n-  Kits  here

Tube of choice

I used a tube from PFD by Di_Halim called Americus you can find it here

You MUST have a license to use.

Mask from Creative Misfits Creations -Sparkle and Bling by Kaci here

or use your mask of choice

font used for name is Challenge Shadow 

Lets begin

Open new image 800 x 800 px , white bg

we will resize later

Add New Layer

Open your cluster frame 

click on the Merged layer , copy and paste 

Resize to 550 px width

Anchor and autocrop Layer

filters / Decor/ add bevel 2 thickness 

(make sure you untick the box that has - work on copy)

Add new layer

move the layer below the frame

open your tube 

copy and paste, position, resize 

I resized my tube to 550 px height and I also

Layer/ transform/ flip horizontally

when happy with it ......Anchor

Autocrop Layer

Duplicate layer and move it above the frame 

We want to erase the bottom part of the tube thats outside the frame

An easy way for me is to use the Rectangle Select Tool

Make a rectangle around the bottom part of the tube thats outside the frame

and hit delete.  

Select none

If you want you can just use the Eraser tool to erase 

Make your frame layer active 

use the Fuzzy select tool or magic wand and click inside the frame

you should have marching ants inside the frame

Add a new layer above the bg layer 

your ants should be marching on this layer

Select/ grow / 8

open your close up tube and Paste INTO 

 (make sure you paste Into and not paste)

Resize and postion as you like it

you can use my tag for reference

When happy , Anchor, Select none

Layer , Autocrop

Duplicate this layer 

make the bottom of these active and

 filters/ blur, gaussian blur  8 horizontal and 8 vertical px

make the top of these active and if you have

eyecandy /weave with default setting

opacity 80

If you haven't added ds now is when I do it

(add ds to the bottom tube only when you have a duplicate)

Hide the bg layer 

Merge visible layers

autocrop layer

resize to 600 px height

unhide bg 

add new layer and fill with color of choice

I used color #14152f  Right click on this layer / add layer mask

(be sure you have black full transparency checked )

open your mask

this one is large so I resized it to 500 px width 

copy and paste , position as you like and resize if you need to 

Anchor

merge tag layer down to mask layer

autocrop layer 

Add your copyrights, license and Name

delete the bg layer

Autocrop Image 

Save