North Pole Sign

Materials Needed:

PSP 7.x - Get it here - will also work in PSP 6.x

Eye Candy 4000 (optional) - Get it here and get my preset here.

If you do not have EC4000, download my glass ball here

A font of your choice

Note: When I say to add a new layer, add a raster layer. Screenshots have been reduced in size to minimize loading time - the quality of your image will be much better.

1. Open a new image 50 x 50. Flood fill with white. With your selection tool, feather 0, antialias UNchecked, draw a rectangle from 0, 0 to 50, 25 and flood fill with red. I used #C00000. Save this image as "redstripe.psp"

2. Open another image 600 x 500. Flood fill with a colour if desired.

3. Add a new layer and name it "left post". With your selection tool, feather 0, antialias checked, draw a rectangle from 60, 180 to 120, 490. Flood fill with the redstripe pattern, using an angle of 45. Deselect.

(Thanks to Mahogany, who I learned this technique from)

4. Effects--->3D Effects--->Inner Bevel. Use the following settings:

5. Add a new layer and name it "post top". Draw a rectangle from 30, 165 to 150, 195 and flood fill with white. Apply the same inner bevel. Image--->3D Effects--->Drop Shadow. Use the following settings:

I didn't like how the bevel "dirtied" the white, so I brightened by 5 (Colors--->Adjust--->Brightness/Contrast). Deselect.

With your eraser tool, erase any shadow on the sides and top, so just the bottom has a shadow. Deselect.

6. Turn off your background layer and merge visible the rest. Rename the merged layer "left post". On your layer, right click and choose "duplicate". Rename the duplicate layer "right post". Image--->Mirror.

7. On your left post layer, add a new layer and name it "left ball".

If you have Eye Candy 4000, skip to 7b.

a. If you do not have Eye Candy 4000, open the MSR_glassball.psp image and copy and paste it onto your left post. Position with the mover tool. Do the same for the right post, copy and paste the glass ball onto it. (Do NOT just duplicate and mirror the left ball image, for an explanation why, see the "Note for EC users in step #10). Now, turn off all layers but the glass ball layers and merge those two, renaming the layer to "balls dark". Skip to step #9.

b. If you do have EC 4000, with your selection tool, same settings, draw a circle starting at 90, 100 and going to 99, 99 in the third set of numbers. Flood fill with red - I used a darker red than for the stripes, as it lightens after the EC is applied - the shade I used was #9D0101.

With your mover tool, set the ball on top of the post.

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